Tell Me A Story
by Raziel12
Summary: Bed time rolls around at the Farron-Yun residence and Fang finds herself having to tell a story to three inquisitive children. Her story of choice? Eclair and the Beast.
1. Chapter 1

**Éclair and the Beast**

Fang looked down at the mess in the microwave and grimaced. It wasn't that she couldn't cook – she was a survivor if nothing else – but even after years of practice, she still hadn't gotten completely used to the technology that the former inhabitants of Cocoon seemed to love so much. Well, at least she still had a few hours before Lightning got back. The other woman might not be as good a cook as Serah, but she was no slouch in the kitchen, and Lightning was just as uptight about keeping the kitchen tidy as she was about keeping everything else tidy.

"Mommy, what's taking so long? Did you burn the popcorn again?"

With one last grimace, Fang took the blackened remains of the popcorn from the microwave and dumped the whole mess into the rubbish bin. The scorch marks on the inside of the microwave would just have to wait till later. As she ambled back into the living room, Fang felt a grin slip onto her face. Her two kids were there on the couch, curled up under a big, fluffy blanket, along with Serah's daughter. Damn, they were just about perfect, weren't they? But then again, considering who their parents were, maybe that wasn't such a surprise.

"What did you just say, young lady?" Fang asked, moving over to the couch and raising one eyebrow at her elder daughter, Averia, before she reached down and poked her on the nose. The girl had Lightning's hair and complexion, but her eyes were all Fang's. "Well, care to repeat what you were saying?"

"Mommy!" Averia growled. "Stop poking me!"

Fang chuckled evilly. "Why should I? I think it's pretty funny, especially since you were making fun of me for burning the popcorn." Just for fun, she poked Averia again and the girl, all of eight years old, scowled in a very Lightning-like manner and tried to grab at her fingers.

"But you always burn stuff in the microwave." Averia folded her arms over her chest. "And Aunt Vanille always laughs at you and you never poke her." She narrowed her eyes. "And what about mom? Whenever you burn stuff in the microwave you always end up having to say sorry a lot." She paused. "But I think Aunt Vanille called it 'grovelling' or something." She ignored the twitch in Fang's eye. "So, I don't see why you have to poke me."

"I see." Fang couldn't really fault her daughter's logic. Still, she'd have to have a word or two with Vanille later, maybe strangle her a bit. Oerba Yun Fang absolutely did not grovel to anyone, not even to Lightning. She just happened to enjoy sleeping in her bed, with her wife, instead of on their couch. "Anyway, what are you three watching?"

"We were watching something about you and the others, Aunt Fang." The words came from Serah's daughter, Claire, and Fang smiled softly as she took in the way that Claire had snuggled right up to Averia. The pair looked just like Serah and Lightning. The only real difference was that rather than the carefully hidden look of tenderness that Lightning always had when she looked at Serah, Averia just looked sleepy.

"That so?" Fang looked at the television more closely. Looking past Averia, Fang turned her attention to the smallest of the trio on the couch. Her younger daughter little Diana was only five years old and for Fang, looking at her was almost like looking at a younger version of herself, only with blue eyes. However, unlike Claire and Averia, Diana wasn't really watching the television. Instead, she was slowly, but steadily hoarding more and more of the blanket for herself. Yep, she definitely took after Lightning in that respect.

Unfortunately, Fang's contentment at being with her two children and her niece lasted only as long as it took for the commercial break to end, because once it did, she saw exactly what Claire had meant about the show being about her and the others. The show was actually a movie about the whole fal'Cie fiasco that had culminated in the downfall of Cocoon and the move to Gran Pulse. That alone wouldn't have been too bad, because Fang could understand how people might want to make a movie about something so important. No, the problem was with the cast of the movie.

For starters, they could have tried a little harder to actually pick actors who looked like them. Fang knew her memory wasn't perfect, but the last she remembered she did not resemble a man in drag. They'd also taken great liberties with the others. The actor they'd chosen for Snow wasn't nearly tall enough, or brawny enough, whereas the actor they'd chosen for Hope was a good deal taller than he should be. And Lightning… Not only hadn't they bothered to try and get the right shade of pink for her hair, but the actress's breasts were entirely too big. Not that there was anything wrong with big breasts – Fang's own weren't exactly small – but she could personally attest to the fact that Lightning's breasts were absolutely fine just the way they were, better than fine, actually. Still, Vanille and Sazh had probably gotten it the worst. The actor playing Sazh had to be pushing seventy and Vanille looked, and sounded, like a twelve year old girl.

"Okay," Fang said as she took the remote for the television and switched the horrid thing off, "It's getting late, so it's about time for all of you to head off to bed."

"But we were watching that!" Averia complained as she squirmed around and tried to snatch the control back.

Fang lifted the remote out of reach. "That thing you were watching didn't get a single thing right," she said. "Besides, it is getting late, so do you want to head up to bed now, or would you rather explain to your mom why you stayed up past your bed time?"

That got the required response, as Averia turned very, very pale. Fang smirked. To the kids, Lightning was like a cross between Etro and the boogieman. Behave, and all kinds of good things were likely to happen like trips to the park, sleepovers with Claire, and even the occasional cake. Misbehave, however, and less pleasant things were likely to happen, things like helping with the chores and lots of vegetables for dinner. Naturally, Fang chose to ignore the fact that she was every bit as susceptible to reinforcement and punishment as the kids, although her reinforcements and punishments were a little, ahem, more adult in nature. Still, Fang's moment of triumph didn't last long, because hardly a moment had passed before she felt a gentle tug on her sari.

"Can we please stay up?" Diana whispered as her big blue eyes, so like Lightning's, shimmered. "Please?"

"Gah!" Fang quickly looked away. She'd never, ever been able to handle that look. She was just lucky that Lightning had way too much dignity to ever try the old 'puppy dog eyes' on her, because if she did, she'd never lose an argument. Diana, on the other hand, was only five years old and she had no qualms at all about using them. It didn't help either that both Averia and Claire had long since worked out Fang's weakness and were forever getting the younger girl to do their dirty work.

Holding one hand over her face to shield herself from 'the look', Fang shook her head. "Okay, get that look off your face, Diana, it's not working this time. Now, all of you, up." She made the mistake of looking into Diana's watery blue eyes and winced. "I suppose, I could tell you all a story or something… it'd be better than letting you watch that rubbish movie that you were looking at earlier."

"Yay!" Diana cheered before she untangled herself from the blanket and latched onto Fang. "Can you carry me up to bed?" 

Fang laughed and patted Diana on the head. This sort of behaviour was undoubtedly the product of having two extremely doting parents, a very overprotective sister, and a cousin who might look a lot like Serah but took to fisticuffs like Snow. Diana was spoiled rotten and even though Fang knew they shouldn't indulge her too much, she just didn't have the heart to say no to her. Saying no was more Lightning's thing and although Fang sometimes felt a bit bad at always letting Lightning be the tough one, Fang just couldn't get over the fact that the two of them had kids, two perfect, beautiful, unbelievably wonderful kids. She just wanted to give them the best of everything, to make them as happy as she possibly could. "Okay, kiddo," Fang said as she slung Diana over her shoulder like a bag of rice. "Up you get." She grinned down at Claire and Averia. "You two can walk though."

"Wait!" Diana shouted before Fang could take a single step. "You forgot Mr Snaggles!"

"Did I?" Fang bent awkwardly, somehow keeping a decent hold on Diana as she reached for the Bahamut plush toy on the couch. Holding it up, she couldn't help but smile as she remembered just how Mr Snaggles had come about.

After the downfall of Cocoon, the former l'Cie had kept most of their powers, including the ability to summon their Eidolons. However, summoning Bahamut wasn't something that Fang took lightly. A giant mechanical dragon thingy tended to draw a little too much attention, not to mention, terrify almost everybody. Still, Bahamut did come in handy when the local wildlife got a little too much for the local branch of Guardian Corps to handle.

On one occasion a whole herd of Behemoth Kings had wandered into town and although Fang wouldn't normally have hesitated too much before jumping into the fray, Averia had been with her. Fang hadn't even had to think twice before calling Bahamut. When it came to her family, she was not going to take any chances. The battle that had followed had been short, bloody, and oddly brutal, as Bahamut had torn into the Behemoth Kings with a ferocity that seemed to mirror the protective fury in Fang's heart.

When everything was over, Fang had been stunned to see that rather than being scared, Averia looked entranced. Before Fang could stop her, the little girl had stumbled over to Bahamut and begun to clamber up onto his shoulders. Thankfully, the dragon had taken the whole thing very well, and Fang had darted after her daughter and yanked her off, but not before scolding her in a panicked mix of fright and relief to never, ever jump onto her Eidolon again without asking first.

Lightning, of course, had been absolutely furious, especially when Averia had very loudly demanded that she be able to summon a dragon to stomp on people she didn't like. It didn't take a genius to see that letting a little girl summon an Eidolon would probably be a very, very bad idea, especially a little girl who got into more than her fair share of schoolyard scraps. Pulling someone's hair was one thing, summoning a dragon quite another. Still, Averia had thrown a tremendous tantrum and then sulked for days when Fang and Lightning had told her that no, she wouldn't be getting her own Eidolon. Things had only improved when Vanille, Etro bless her soul, had turned up one morning with a plush toy that looked just like Bahamut. That seemed to appease Averia and as a plush toy, it was considerably less dangerous than the real thing. Of course, Snow had ruined the moment by turning up not ten minutes later with an incredibly realistic plush toy of the Shiva sisters in their gestalt form. Lightning had been forced to explain, with her fists, why she didn't think his plush toy was age appropriate. Naturally, Fang thought it looked wonderful, but she'd been smart enough to keep that opinion to herself.

In any case, Averia had carried the Bahamut plush toy, nicknamed Mr Snaggles, around with her for years. It was only after Diana was born and wanted a plush toy of her own that Averia had given Mr Snaggles up. Just like Lightning, Averia had a hard time saying no to her little sister, and when Diana had shown an interest in Mr Snaggles, Averia had been okay with giving it to her, especially since she was 'a big girl now'.

Shaking her head slightly to break herself out of the memories, Fang handed Mr Snaggles to Diana. "Okay, we've got Mr Snaggles, now let's get you lot into bed."

Upstairs in the girls' bedroom, Fang tucked each of the girls in, and after a not so quiet word from Diana, she also tucked in Mr Snaggles, the plush Bahamut looking oddly serious as she settled him into place beside Diana. Fang's two daughters were sleeping in their own beds, while Claire was sleeping in the spare bed that Fang and Lightning often kept around due to how often Claire spent the night over. This time, Claire was over because Snow and Serah were taking a romantic weekend away, which meant it was up to Fang to watch the kids, at least until Lightning finished her shift with the Guardian Corps.

Once everyone was safely tucked in, Fang pulled a chair over and took a seat. "I said I'd tell you lot a story, didn't I?"

"I'm too old for stories now," Averia said proudly.

Claire nodded seriously. "Me too."

Fang smiled. She could remember when she'd been just like them, trying to grow up as fast as she could. "Is that so?" She pursed her lips and pretended to think very hard. "Because I seemed to remember some people listening pretty closely the last time I told a story, isn't that right, Diana?"

Diana nodded enthusiastically. "Yeah, Claire and Averia were both crying a bit the last time." She looked over at Mr Snaggles and patted the plush Bahamut on the head. "But we didn't, did we, Mr Snaggles?" She giggled. "That means I must be more grown up than them."

"Hey," Averia said. "I was not crying. I just got something in my eye. Anyway, it was a sad story, so even if I did cry, it would've been okay."

"Well, it was a little sad in the middle, but I gave it a happy ending, didn't I?" Fang said.

"I suppose." Averia scowled at Diana who just smiled back happily. "Are you going to tell us another sad story?"

"Maybe," Fang said. "But a lot of really good stories do have sad parts, so there's nothing wrong with there being a little sadness in the middle."

"I think your stories are okay," Claire admitted softly. "Well, they're better than my daddy's."

"No arguments there," Fang muttered. She'd heard from Serah exactly what kind of stories the blonde told and although there was no faulting Snow's enthusiasm when it came to storytelling, he was probably better off sticking to storybooks. The stories he made up tended to be a little over the top. Even little kids had a hard time believing Snow's epic tale of the brave and noble hero who had not only rescued his beloved but also defeated something close to a thousand – the number rose with each telling – fal'Cie singlehandedly. "So, why don't we get started?"

Diana grinned. "Okay." Beside her, Mr Snaggles bobbed his head up and down in agreement.

Fang took a moment to gather her thoughts. Contradictory to common belief, she didn't just make things up entirely from scratch. After all, she had a whole stack of Oerban legends to draw upon. She also had a knack for improvising – although Lightning often used a far less complimentary term that involved bovines defecating – which meant that she often took a legend or story she'd heard before and tweaked it into something she liked better. As she looked at the girls in front of her, two of them hers and Lightning's, the other Snow and Serah's, a slow smile spread across her face. The three of them were like sisters and she knew, deep down inside, that no matter what the years brought, they'd look after each other. Yes, she had just the story.

"My story is about two sister who lived on Gran Pulse –" Fang began before she was interrupted.

"Your stories are always on Gran Pulse," Averia grumbled.

But before Fang could say a word, someone else decided to straighten Averia out.

"Don't say things like that!" Diana wailed, somehow squirming out from under her covers and throwing herself onto her sister's bed. Once there she proceeded to whack the older girl over the head with Mr Snaggles.

Fang bit back a chuckle as Claire entered the fray, joining Diana on Averia's bed and trying to pull the little girl off, but with very little success. Diana was cute most of the time, but she could be pretty difficult to deal with if she got annoyed enough. The fact that Averia couldn't even really bring herself to fight back against her little sister just made things more humorous. Eventually, the trio settled down, and Fang coughed to get their attention back.

"Well, that's about enough out of you three," Fang said. "Now quieten down while I tell the story, otherwise I'll get the real Mr Snaggles over here to sort you three out." She grinned. "And he'll probably be hungry too."

Needless to say, all three children immediately quietened down.

"Now," Fang said as Diana brandished Mr Snaggles at the other two girls and whispered something about horrible, dragon-based death, "As I was saying, my story is about two sisters who lived many, many years ago on Gran Pulse. The two sisters were named Serra and Éclair and they lived all on their own."

"Why were they all alone?" Diana asked, big blue eyes wide. "Where were their parents?"

Fang smiled faintly. These kinds of interruptions she didn't mind. In fact, she almost expected them. Back in Oerba, telling stories had been almost like a ritual, with the storyteller leaving specific gaps and pauses for the listeners to ask questions. It didn't even matter if the listeners had heard the story before, asking questions was just another way to connect to the story, to connect to the storyteller.

"Well, the reason that Serra and Éclair lived all alone was because when they were younger, their parents became very sick. Although they asked many doctors for help, none of the doctors could cure them and so Serra and Éclair's parents passed away," Fang paused. "Éclair, being the elder sister, had no choice but to look after her younger sister."

"That's so sad," Diana said. She looked at Averia and Claire. "That's sad, isn't it?"

"I guess," Averia said, huffing slightly, but Fang could see that she was sad, as well. Claire, who wore her expressions as openly as her mother, was also easy to read.

"Because they didn't have any parents, Éclair had to work very hard to support herself and her sister. Lucikly, Éclair was a skilled seamstress and many people from the town they lived in came to her to have their clothes made. When Serra got older, she too worked, but unlike her sister who was a skilled seamstress, Serra's talent lay in cooking, and so she worked in the town's inn, making meals for the townsfolk and the travellers that passed through. And because both of the girls were very hard working, very kind, and very beautiful, the townsfolk grew to love them very dearly and for a while, they lived well." Fang made a sad face. "However, things changed when the mayor of the town, a man named Galeth, decided to try to rid the town of the haunted manor that lay in the woods near the town. To get rid of the haunted manor, the mayor called in many soldiers. One of those soldiers was a man named Ice. Now, Ice was a good young man, a bit silly perhaps, and not particularly bright, but he had a pure, kind heart and he was brave and loyal to his friends. Because there weren't enough houses for the soldiers, Ice ended up staying at the inn where Serra worked and the two of them quickly fell in love."

Averia made a face. "Ewww…"

Fang couldn't help herself – she laughed. "Anyway, eventually the day came when Ice and the other soldiers went into the deep, dark woods to try and get rid of the haunted manor. However, the monster that lived there turned out to be very strong and all of the soldiers were defeated, some never to be seen again."

"What happened to Ice?" Claire asked. "Was he okay?"

"Well, he wasn't okay," Fang said, "But although he was very badly hurt, his love for Serra was so strong that he managed to make it back to town where doctors were able to save him. However, the attack on the haunted manor had made the monster very angry and it sent a message to the town: They would have to sacrifice one of their own people and send them to stay with it at the manor, otherwise, the monster would come and destroy them all."

"That's mean!" Diana cried. "If only they'd had Mr Snaggles!" For emphasis she waved her plush toy around, the little Bahamut looking less than menacing as it swung through the air.

Fang nodded. "I guess you're right, if the real Mr Snaggles had been around, the townsfolk wouldn't have been worried at all, but in any case, he wasn't, so they were very worried indeed." She made a sad face. "For several days, the townsfolk talked amongst themselves about who they would send to the monster but no one would volunteer. Eventually, the monster sent another message to the town and told them that they had one more day to decide who would go, but still they couldn't agree on who should have to go. Finally, fearing for her sister's safety, Éclair said that she would go, so long as the townsfolk and Ice promised to look after Serra and make sure that she would always be safe and happy. Serra begged her not to go, but Éclair knew that if she didn't then no one would go and then all of them would be destroyed by the monster.

"So, the very next morning, Éclair set off into the deep, dark woods, following instructions that Ice had given her that would take her to the haunted manor. She walked for a long time, and finally, just as the sun was about to set, she reached the haunted manor, but instead of a scary, creepy looking place, she found the most beautiful place she'd ever seen, with lush green grass in front of a big, well-kept manor. There were also beautiful flowers everywhere and brightly painted fences. There was even a small lake with lots of fish in it." Fang smirked. "It was nothing at all like Ice had said it would be, and for a while Éclair wondered if Ice had given her the wrong directions, or if she'd gotten lost."

"Was she at the wrong place?" Averia asked. "Because it doesn't sound like a place where a monster would live."

Fang laughed. "No, it doesn't, does it?" She smiled. "But sure enough it was the right place, because when Éclair reached the gates, she was welcomed by two servants, a young woman named Apple and a young boy named Faith. They welcome Éclair to the manor and told her that it was indeed the monster's manor. Naturally, Éclair was very surprised, not only by how the manor looked, but also by the fact that she was being welcomed. In fact, she'd expected the monster to just jump out and eat her or something. As it was, Apple and Faith explained to her that the manor was magical and for those who were welcome, it would always look good, but for those who were not welcome, it would always look gloomy."

"Wow," Diana whispered. "That is so cool."

"It sure is," Fang said, "But that's why it was a magical manor and not just a normal one. Anyway, Apple and Faith asked Éclair if she was hungry and when Éclair said that she was, they told her to get ready, because they were going to make a wonderful meal and she was expected to be there. As Apple went off to get dinner ready, Faith led Éclair up to the finest room in the whole manor. He told her that from now on it would be hers and he showed her a fine dress – the finest dress that Éclair had ever seen – and told her that she should wear it to dinner.

"When Éclair was finally ready for dinner, Faith led her to a big dining room lit by a huge golden chandelier and there, on the dining table, were all kinds of food, from fruits, to sweets and breads, and finely cooked meats. Éclair sat down at the table and was about to start eating when the doors on the other side of the dining room opened and in stepped the monster."

The children all waited with bated breath for Fang to continue, Diana holding Mr Snaggles close.

"The monster looked just like Ice had said it would," Fang said. "It looked kind of like a woman but with a long tail, and instead of normal skin, its skin was grey-black in colour and its hair was like living flame. Most people would have tried to run away, but Éclair was very brave and she knew that if she wanted to keep her sister safe, she had to stay with the monster, so instead of running away, or screaming, she thanked the monster for the fine meal and started to eat her dinner." Fang grinned. "Of course, the monster was very surprised – most people ran away the moment they saw it – but when it saw that Éclair seemed unafraid, it laughed and sat down to eat its dinner, as well."

"So, the monster didn't eat Éclair?" Averia asked.

"Not all monsters eat people, you know," Fang replied before she continued. "After they had eaten dinner, the monster explained to Éclair why she was there. It turned out that the monster possessed a great treasure, one worth more than a thousand times as much as the whole town and everything in it. According to the monster that was the real reason that the town's mayor, Galeth, had sent the soldiers. That was why the monster had asked Éclair to come to the manor. She was to be the monster's hostage so that the townsfolk would never attack the manor again. Fortunately, the monster was not cruel, so while Éclair could never leave, she could live well at the manor, eating fine food and wandering its many gardens and rooms."

"That still seems sad though," Diana said.

"It was," Fang agreed. "But Éclair did her best not be sad. After all, the townsfolk and Ice had all promised to look after Serra and so long as her sister was happy, Éclair had no regrets. But because she could never leave the manor, Éclair decided to try and be as happy as she could there. So, as the weeks passed, she made friend with Apple and Faith. She also explored the manor and the gardens around it and got to know them as well as she'd known the town. She even started talking to the monster and before she knew it they were friends as well, because even though the monster looked scary, it actually turned out to be pretty nice. After a while, the monster even agreed to let Éclair write to her sister, to let her know that she was doing well."

"That was nice," Diana said.

"It was, and eventually after several months had gone by, Éclair finally asked the monster about something that had been bothering her for a while," Fang said.

"What was it?" Claire asked.

"Éclair wanted to know about the treasure that the monster had," Fang said. "She didn't want it for herself or anything, but she did want to know what could possibly be so valuable. It took days of pleading, but finally, the monster relented. It had come to trust Éclair and so it took her to the most secret part of the manor and showed Éclair its treasure. The treasure was a beautiful rose made out of purest crystal and looking upon it, Éclair could easily believe that it was worth one thousand times as much as the whole town and everything in it. At first when Éclair asked the monster where the rose had come from, the monster did not answer her. Finally, the monster explained to her that it hadn't always been a monster. In fact, the monster had once been a beautiful woman called Ragna who had lived in the manor with her two most trusted servants, Apple and Faith. One day an evil wizard named Baldanders had come to the manor and demanded that Ragna marry him and when Ragna had refused, Baldanders had put an evil curse on her. The curse turned Ragna into the monster and created the crystal rose. According to the curse, Ragna would live forever and ever, hated by all until either the day the crystal rose was taken from her, which would kill her, or the day the crystal rose turned into a real rose and she was set free. Unfortunately, Ragna didn't know how to turn the crystal rose into a real rose, so she had lived in her manor as the monster for years and years all alone with no one for company except for Apple and Faith."

"That stupid wizard!" Averia growled. "Ragna should have eaten him or something when he turned her into the monster."

Fang chuckled as Claire rolled her eyes. "He probably used his magic to make it so she couldn't do something like that."

"Does Ragna change back?" Diana wanted to know. "It would be horrible if she had to stay a monster with everyone hating her just because of that evil wizard."

Fang smiled. "Well, keep listening to the story and you'll find out." She paused. "A year passed and Ragna continued to let Éclair write to her sister because she saw how happy it made Éclair. However, one day, the mayor of the village found one of Éclair's letters and when he realised that the monster was not as scary as he first thought, he began to tell the townsfolk that the monster was doing all sorts of horrible things to Éclair. Because the townsfolk loved Éclair, and because they were so ashamed of sending her to the monster in the first place, they became very angry and the mayor led all the townsfolk and more soldiers back to the manor to try and take the crystal rose."

"But why didn't Serra tell them that Ragna was being kind to Éclair?" Diana asked.

"Because sometimes people believe what they want to believe," Fang said softly. "It didn't matter to the townsfolk that in her letters, Éclair said that the monster was treating her kindly. When Serra did tell them, they just said that the monster was forcing Éclair to lie, because to them all things that looked ugly like the monster just had to be evil."

"That's not fair!" Diana cried.

"No, it's not," Fang replied. "And it's a good lesson too – just because someone is ugly on the outside doesn't mean they're ugly on the inside. The opposite is true too. Someone can be beautiful on the outside but ugly on the inside." She grinned. "Of course, you three are beautiful on the inside and the outside, so you don't have to worry.

"Anyway, the townsfolk and the soldiers attacked the manor and this time there were too many for Ragna to fight off. Apple and Faith were put in chains and the town's mayor, Galeth, broke into the secret room and took the crystal rose. As soon as he put his hands on the crystal rose, Ragna fell to the ground and began to die but Éclair snatched the crystal rose back from Galeth and gave it back to Ragna. Unfortunately, it was too late, and even though Ragna had the crystal rose in her hands, her breathing began to grow fainter and fainter and her heart began to beat slower and slower. Éclair had come to care very deeply for Ragna and when she saw that Ragna was still going to die, she began to weep and as her tears fell onto the crystal rose, something incredible happened." Fang smirked. "Can you guess what?"

"Just tell us!" All three children shouted.

Fang laughed. "Okay, okay. So… as Éclair's tears fell onto the crystal rose, a miracle happened. There was a great whoosh and the crystal rose began to glow. A second later, the crystal shattered and in its place was a single real rose, and it was most beautiful rose that anyone had ever seen. When Éclair looked back at Ragna, she no longer looked like a monster. Instead, she was a woman again, young and beautiful and very much alive." Fang grinned. "When the townsfolk saw what had happened, they were amazed. They asked Éclair and Ragna to explain and when they found out that Ragna had been cursed and that the mayor had lied to them, they were angry again, but not at Ragna, instead, they were angry with the evil wizard Baldanders and the mayor, Galeth."

"What did they do to the mayor?" Averia asked, a little too gleefully.

Fang smirked. "They drove Galeth away and he was never heard of or seen again. As for the evil wizard Baldanders, people say that when Éclair's tears broke the spell he'd put on Ragna, his own magic turned on him and he himself was turned into a monster, to be alone and hated until he too could finally find someone who loved him enough to cry for him." She laughed. "Although it wouldn't surprise me if he was still stuck alone and as a monster even now." She smiled broadly. "As for Ragna, Éclair and the others? With the curse broken, the forest was no long dark and gloomy and Ragna became good friend with all the townsfolk. In fact, she even invited Ice and Serra to live with her, Éclair, Apple, and Faith at the manor, and there they all lived very, very happily for a long, long time."

"Happily ever after?" Diana asked.

"Yep, happily ever after," Fang said. She glanced over at Claire and Averia. "So, did you like the story?"

Averia nodded. "It was okay. I like how they drove Galeth away, although maybe they should have fed him to a monster or something."

Claire seemed to agree. "It had a good ending."

Fang stood and smiled down at the three children. "I kind of agree with you on that one. Now, why don't you three get some sleep? Tomorrow, I'll see if we can't go to the park or something, maybe even have pancakes for breakfast." The kids grinned. "Now, hurry up and sleep. The faster you fall asleep, the faster you can wake up and eat pancakes."

With the kids asleep for the night, Fang headed back down to the living room to wait for Lightning. Out of morbid curiosity, she turned the television back on and she wasn't sure whether to laugh or put her fist through the television screen when the movie showed her and Lightning engaged in a torrid love scene in the ruins of Oerba. Honestly, if she and Lightning had done that in Oerba during their journey as l'Cie – and so noisily too – there was no way that the others wouldn't have noticed.

The front door opened and Fang smirked as she heard Lightning mutter a curse once the other woman walked into the living room and saw what was happening on the television screen.

"We did not do that!" Lightning growled, slumping down onto the couch. "And there is no way that my breasts are that big!"

Fang eyed the breasts in question with a contemplative look. "How was your shift?"

Lightning reached for the remote and turned the television off. "Terrible. One of the new recruits seemed to think it would be a good idea to wedge his head down the throat of a gorgonopsid."

"Ouch." Fang made a face. "He's alive, right?"

Lightning made a disgusted sound. "Of course. Nobody dies on my shift. Still, it took us an hour to get the thing's jaws off from around his head. Messy too." She paused for a moment and sniffed the air. Her eyes narrowed. "Fang…"

Fang reached over and tugged Lightning into her lap. Time to lay on that old Yun charm. "Don't worry about it, Lightning, just had a big of trouble with the popcorn."

Lightning sighed, but wrapped her arms around Fang. "Please tell me you didn't set any of the children on fire."

"Of course not," Fang said. "Even I'm not that bad. In fact, all three of them are upstairs in bed right now sleeping." She tilted Lightning chin up and ran one finger along her cheek. "Speaking of which, how'd you like to head upstairs, as well, for some… sleeping?"

Lightning looked at Fang sceptically. "Sleeping? I don't really do much sleeping around you, Fang." She smiled softly. "Although I can't say that I mind." She wrapped her arms around Fang's neck. "Carry me upstairs?"

Fang grinned. "You're just like Diana, you know." Lightning smiled as Fang lifted her up bridal style and began to head toward the stairs. "Only you're a bit heavier than her – ouch!" Fang rubbed jaw. Honestly, how had Lightning managed to get any leverage on that punch from her position?

"What was that?" Lightning asked, a playful scowl on her face. "And don't think I'll forget about the microwave either. If we have to buy a new one…"

Fang smirked down at Lightning and started up the stairs. "What makes you think you'll have the energy to do anything about the microwave once I'm through with you?"

Lightning's eyes flashed. "Is that a challenge?"

"Damn straight, sunshine."

X X X

Later, much later, Fang was lying half asleep, her limbs entwined with Lightning's.

"Did you tell the kids a story today?" Lightning asked quietly.

"Huh?" Fang struggled to stay awake, no easy task with the way that Lightning was gently running her fingers through her hair and pressing soft, gentle kisses against her throat and chin. "Story? Hmm… I guess I did." She opened one eye lazily. "You want to hear it?"

Lightning chuckled softly. "If you're not too tired out."

Fang shifted a little, stroking the small of Lightning's back. "Too tired? Not a chance. Besides, I think you'll like this story."

After Fang had finished telling the story, Lightning chuckled. "That's quite a story, although you're just lucky they didn't see right through you. I mean, Ragna? Ice? Éclair? Serra? Really, Fang."

Fang grinned. "I know."

A mischievous smile crossed Lightning's face. "Although I don't think I'd have called the lady of manor Ragna." She pressed her lips against Fang's. "I think Mrs Snaggles suits you much better."

X X X

**Authors' Notes**

As always I neither own Final Fantasy, nor am I making any money off this.

Okay… after writing Princess Yuffie and the Demon, I had originally intended to work on some of my other longer stories, but this story just kept beating me over the head until I eventually had no choice but to write it (or face the wrath of Mr Snaggles). Like Princess Yuffie and the Demon, this story is a mishmash of references to traditional fairytales, Disney movies and Final Fantasy.

For those of you who are curious, Fang's fairytale is loosely based on the Disney version of Beauty and the Beast, what with the magical rose, the person transformed into a monster, and all that jazz (I'll leave it to your imagination to assign the various characters to their corresponding roles), mashed together with the plot line of FF XIII (the older sister sacrificing her chance at a normal life for the younger sister, the young man and the younger sister falling in love etc. etc.). Naturally, rather than using the original Disney characters, Fang chose to insert her fellow FF XIII characters instead, but after a few name changes (and with some minor tweaking to the plot). That said, I think the name changes might need a bit more explaining.

Essentially:

Éclair = Lightning

Ragna = Fang

Serra = Serah

Ice = Snow

Apple = Vanille

Faith = Hope

Galeth = Galenth Dysley

Baldanders = Barthandelus

Éclair was chosen as the name for the "Lightning" character in Fang's fairytale because it was the named used for Lighting during the development of FF XIII and indeed in the Japanese version, as well. Ragna is a contraction of Ragnarok, who Fang transforms into (at least partially, anyway). Baldanders is apparently the name used for Barthandelus in some versions of the game and Galeth is a corruption of Galenth. Faith and Ice are, respectively, words closely related to Hope and Snow. The link between Apple and Vanille is a little bit more obscure, but Vanille's Crystarium crystal is in the shape of an apple, so there you have it. The least obvious link is between Serra and Serah – in fact it's not even a link based on FF lore. As a matter of fact, I chose Serra not just because it sounds like Serah, but also because I believe Serah shares many of the same personality characteristics as Serra, a famous planeswalker from the trading card game, Magic the Gathering. Both are considered "white magic aligned" in so far as they are kind, gentle, and basically really good, caring people. If you managed to work that out ahead of time, then I tip my imaginary internet hat to you.

Finally, the names of the children… Averia was chosen on the basis that it was one of the names originally mooted for Lightning's real name. Claire is, obviously, Lightning's real name and I don't think it is that unlikely that Serah would name her daughter after Lightning, and Diana is named the Roman goddess of the hunt, which I think is quite appropriate, given whom her parents are.

Writing this story was good fun, although I would appreciate your feedback on whether or not it's a vein worth exploring. By that I mean, whether or not you'd be interested in hearing what stories the other characters might have to tell the kids.

As always, I appreciate feedback. Reviews and comments are welcome.


	2. Chapter 2

**Five Hundred Years**

The first inkling that Serah Farron had that something, most likely mischievous, was going on in her living room was when she heard a loud thump. A moment later, the loud thump was followed by giggling and the sound of something heavy being pushed across the living room carpet. More than a little curious as to what exactly was going – and, from past experience with her daughter and nieces, a little fearful – she put down the potato she was peeling and peeked into the living room.

The television was still on, but none of the children were watching it. Instead, all three of the girls were busy constructing what looked to be some kind of fort. As usual, Diana had put herself in charge and rather than actually help, the little black haired girl had taken to giving orders, only half of which made any real kind of sense. Most of the actual work was left to Claire and Averia who were pushing two of the couches and some chairs together to form the walls of the fort.

"It doesn't look like much yet, but add a couple of blankets and some pillows and I think it'll actually look pretty good."

Serah turned and rolled her eyes good-naturedly. Rather than try and dissuade the girls from their little project, Vanille had, as usual, decided to join right in. The red head was juggling a pile of blankets and pillows and there was a big grin on her face that left Serah in absolutely doubt as to who would be joining the girls in the fort as soon as it was finished.

"Let me guess, Diana ordered you to get the blankets and pillows?" Serah asked, biting back a smile as Diana began to gesture quite dramatically in an effort to get Claire and Averia to build the fort faster. "You know, I was just like Diana when Lightning and I were little. Whenever we did stuff like this, I'd always make her do all the heavy lifting." Serah chuckled as both Claire and Averia turned on Diana with scowls on their faces. "And Lightning would look at me just like that. Of course, she'd do what I said anyway, just like Claire and Averia are probably just going to do what Diana says anyway." And sure enough, it took only the faintest hint of tears – almost certainly faked – from Diana before the two older girls got back to work, albeit grudgingly.

"Why am I not surprised to find out that Lightning spoiled you rotten when you were little?" Vanille replied as she set the blankets and pillows over by the girls. "Although, I can't say I was much better. Fang spoiled me rotten too." She lifted a pillow and gestured at Serah. "Care to give me a hand?"

Serah looked back toward the kitchen. The potatoes wouldn't peel themselves, but a few minutes certainly wouldn't hurt. Besides, there was a part of her that looked at the mess of furniture and bedding and saw the makings of an excellent fort, one fit for at least one or two good battles. "Sure."

However, she'd hardly taken a step, before Claire latched onto her waist.

"Mommy!" Claire cried as she wrapped her arms around Serah's middle and then tugged her over to the fort. "You're helping right? Here." She pointed at where a few chairs had been propped up side by side. "Hang a blanket over those and put some pillows there too."

"Is that going to be one of the walls?" Serah asked as she put a blanket over the chairs, careful to check that they wouldn't easily tip over, along with some pillows for padding.

"Yup!" Claire said. "And the couches are going to be the sides."

Serah felt a smile slip onto her face. It seemed like only yesterday Claire had been a little baby in her arms and here she was building a fort. It probably wouldn't even be that long before Claire got taller than her, no doubt helped along by Snow's genes.

"Aunt Vanille," Diana said, "Help me with the gate." The girl gestured at the open side of the fort. "We need some pillows for it or something."

"I thought you were all watching television," Serah said as she passed Vanille a pillow. "What happened?"

Averia scowled and both Serah and Vanille shared a grin. That was Lightning's scowl right there. "There wasn't really anything interesting on, just news and stuff, so we decided to make a fort instead. Anyway, there's heaps of stuff you can do with a fort."

"I see." Vanille took a step back to admire her handiwork. The fort was looking a lot more fort-like now, with three proper walls and some pillows built up into a crude arch for the gate. "So, what game were you going to play?"

"We were going to play knights and princesses," Averia said. "Right, Claire?"

Claire smiled and nodded. "Right."

"Knights and princesses?" Serah's lips curved into a smile. She could already see one potential problem with the game they'd chosen. "But which one of you is going to be the princess?"

Immediately all three of the girls pointed at each other. In a vain attempt to bolster her cause, Diana got Mr Snaggles to point at the two other girls, as well, the plush toy actually looking a little uncomfortable at being thrust into the position of tiebreaker.

"So… I'm guessing you all want to be knights then?" As gently as she could, Serah took Mr Snaggles from Diana and put him on the little pillow throne that the girls had put together. Plush toys, no matter how well loved and adorable, should not have the chance to vote. Still, it didn't surprise her very much at all that all three of the girls wanted to be knights. After all, Averia and Diana had Lightning and Fang for parents, so the idea of just waiting around to be rescued was probably as foreign to them as the idea of surrender. As for Claire, well, she was definitely daddy's little girl and all of Snow's talk about being a hero had long since convinced the girl that being a hero was the best job in the world. Indeed, that had led to a rather humorous incident when Claire had, in complete seriousness, tried to convince Lightning that being a hero was way better than being in the Guardian Corps.

"Yes, we all want to be knights," Claire said. "And I'm going to be the leader and –"

"Hey!" Averia growled. "Why do you get to be the leader?"

Claire narrowed her blue eyes and squared her slim shoulders as she rounded on her cousin. It was a look that Serah recognised all too well – it was the one she used whenever she needed to get Lightning and Snow to do what she wanted. "Because you're at my house right now. Whenever we're at your house, you're always the leader, so it's only fair that I'm the leader this time." Claire glanced over at Diana for support, which Serah was pretty sure was a mistake. "You think so too, don't you, Diana?"

"Um…" Diana grimaced a little as both her cousin and her big sister looked at her for support. Twiddling her fingers a little, she shrugged. "Well… I was kind of hoping that I could be the leader. One of you is always the leader, so maybe I could have a go."

"You're too young to be leader!" Claire and Averia said together before they realised they'd spoken together. Miffed, the two of them turned to face opposite sides of the room.

Serah grinned and glanced at Vanille out of the corner of her eye. Like her, the red head seemed quite amused with the whole situation, most likely because, like Serah, she'd lived through it herself. Three years might not seem like much, but the difference between a five year old and an eight year old was pretty large. "You and Fang must have had arguments like this all the time when you were little," Serah said.

"Actually, not really." Vanille muffled a laugh as Diana launched herself at Claire in an attempt to prove her ability to be the leader in the oldest of ways: by trying to strangle the other girl. Claire, of course, had no trouble holding Diana off, but things took a turn for the worse when Averia entered the fray. "I was usually pretty happy being the princess and Fang was pretty much always my knight, anyway." She glanced back at the melee. "Think we should go break that up?"

"Probably," Serah said with a sigh. Diana had somehow managed to improvise a chokehold on Averia, although just how she'd gone from trying to strangle her cousin to her sister, Serah wasn't sure. At the same time, Averia had gotten Claire in a bear hug, but as Serah walked toward them, Claire got an arm free and braced her forearm under Averia's chin in an attempt to shove her off. "Okay, that's enough you three," Serah said as she pulled the girls apart. "Now, I don't mind you three playing fort, but there will be no strangling or bear hugging or any other form of violence. If you can't play fort peacefully, you shouldn't play it at all." She stopped when she realised that all three of the girls and Vanille were looking at her strangely. "What?"

"Serah," Vanille said, "I can understand the whole no bear hugs and no strangling thing, but it's kind of hard to play fort peacefully." All three of the girls nodded firmly in support. "Play fighting is kind of the whole point of playing fort."

"Oh." Serah flushed. Vanille was pretty much right. "Well, just try not to be too violent then." She glanced back at the girls. "How about you take turns? Claire can start off the leader and then maybe Averia can have a go and then Diana, that way all of you can have a go at being the leader." She looked back toward the kitchen. "Vanille, can you watch them for a while? I've got to go finish up dinner." She smiled. "Now, you girls be good. I don't want to come back and find that you've hurt each other."

Vanille waved one hand lazily. "Don't worry about a thing, Serah, I'll make sure they don't go after each other." She frowned faintly as the three girls formed a little huddle in the fort and started whispering quickly to one another. That was probably not a good sign. "But, Serah, if you hear me screaming come help out, okay?"

Serah paused mid-step. Why would Vanille be screaming? "Um… sure." And with that she headed back into the kitchen to finish making dinner.

X X X

"So, what are you three plotting?" Vanille asked as she walked over to where the three girls seemed to be deep in discussion.

"Well…" Claire turned back to face her with a sneaky little grin and Vanille felt her eye twitch. Serah had a habit of grinning like that whenever she was plotting something. "We've decided that instead of a princess, we'll have a king." She pointed over to Mr Snaggles who looked quite regal on his pillow throne. "But we're still missing something."

"What?" Vanille took a slow step back as Diana and Averia reached for two pillows and handed a third to Claire.

"We need a bad guy," Claire said. "You know, because there's always a good team and a bad team, but there's three of us, so we can't make even teams. But you're an adult, so if you're the bad team, then it should be okay, even if there's more of us."

"But you can't cheat!" Diana said. "No magic or Eidolons or anything. You have to fight fair."

"And how exactly do you expect me to fight?" Vanille asked.

"With this." Averia threw Vanille what had to be the smallest, most pathetic looking pillow ever. It was a far cry from the good-sized, fluffy pillows that all three of the girls wielded.

"Somehow this doesn't exactly seem fair," Vanille drawled. "So… how is this going to work? What am I supposed to be?"

Claire grinned. "You're an evil knight who is trying to kill King Snaggles! We are the Knights of Snaggles and it's our job to stop you – by any means necessary!"

Good grief, Vanille thought. Any means necessary? Where had Claire heard something like that? But before Vanille could give the matter any more thought, the girls charged and the battle was on.

"Take this!" Claire cried as she leapt toward Vanille, pillow raised to deliver what she hoped would be the first of many terrible blows to her evil enemy.

"Hah, you'll have to do better than that!" Vanille crowed as she dodged out of the way. She might not be quite the fighter that Fang was, but she was no slouch with a pillow. It would be a while yet before these three kids were strong enough to take her on. However, Claire's attack had given Averia and Diana the chance to circle around behind her.

"For King Snaggles!" Diana screamed as she laid into Vanille with a barrage of pillow strikes.

Vanille stumbled back into one of the couches that made up the sides of the fort, more out of shock than anything else, as Diana just wasn't big enough to do any real damage. But Averia was quick to seize the opportunity and Vanille scowled as the girl caught her with a solid whack across the stomach. She narrowed her eyes and swiped back at Averia only for the girl to ghost back with an agility that seemed out of place for someone so young, or perhaps not, considering who her parents were.

Over the next few minutes, they exchanged more blows, but Vanille was more than able to hold her own.

"Hmmm…" Claire mused as she circled around Vanille. "Aunt Vanille's pretty tough, isn't she?"

Averia nodded. She'd already taken a few good hits herself. "I thought for sure we'd have won by now."

Diana giggled. "I hit her a lot, but I don't think it did very much."

Vanille grinned and raised her pillow menacingly. "You three should consider yourselves lucky that I let you get the first few hits in. Now, prepare yourselves, they don't call me Vanille the Vengeful for nothing."

Claire frowned. "Vanille the Vengeful? Who calls you that?"

Vanille chuckled weakly and scratched the back of your head. "Now that you mention it, nobody, but it sounded like a good name – I am an evil knight, aren't I?" The girls nodded, that was kind of a good point. "Good, now get ready to face the power of my revenge!"

With a growl, Vanille charged. The girls immediately retreated, each one of them going in a different direction. However, Vanille was more than ready for that. She landed a smart hit across Averia's side and the girl let out a squeak of alarm as Vanille forced her back with a series of pillow strikes, landing about half of them and forcing Averia to take refuge in the sanctuary of the fort. Diana followed shortly after, the youngest of the three girls no match for Vanille's awesome pillow duelling skills as the red head bopped her once over the head and then finished her off with a deadly tickling attack that had Diana giggling hysterically until Claire and Averia came to her aid.

"Unhand her, vile fiend!" Claire shouted as she leapt onto Vanille's back, pillow in hand.

Vanille had just enough time to once again wonder where on earth Claire was learning these phrases before Averia whacked her in the stomach with her pillow. Normally, she'd have easily been able to block the attack, but with Claire on her back, it was a lot tougher. A second later, she found herself tumbling to the floor as Diana dove at her legs.

"Gah!" Vanille cried as she suddenly found herself on the receiving end of a barrage of pillow strikes. "Serah, help!"

X X X

"Serah, help!"

Serah stopped was she was doing the moment she heard Vanille scream for help. Over the past few minutes, she'd heard the sounds of pillow fighting coming from the living room, but this was just a little too much.

She went back to the living room and then stopped dead as she took in the sight in front of her. Vanille and the girls were engaged in a furious pillow fight. Despite the numbers being three to one, Vanille wasn't doing too badly, even though the girls had her pinned to the ground. Somehow, the red head managed to get to her feet and she quickly grabbed Claire and backed away, her pillow pressed against the girl's side.

"Mommy, help!" Claire shouted. "Aunt Vanille's using me as a hostage!"

Vanille grinned evilly. "Even your mommy can't save you now, kiddo. Vanille the Vengeful always gets her revenge." She smirked. "Now hand over King Snaggles unless you want Claire here to suffer a horrible tickling." Just for emphasis, she poked Claire in the side and the girl let out a muffled squeak. "Well, what'll it be?"

"Aunt Serah, you have to help us!" Averia said. "Aunt Vanille's torturing Claire."

Serah took a moment to think things over. Dinner was already pretty much ready, it would just take a little bit longer on the stove to finish. That meant she was free to do as she pleased, at least for a while. Smiling sweetly, she reached for a pillow and made her decision.

Whack.

"You traitor!" Averia growled as she reeled away from Serah's attack. "You're supposed to be on our team."

"Four against one doesn't seem fair," Serah said. "Besides, this way it's adults versus kids."

"Take this, Aunt Serah!" Diana shouted as she hurled her pillow at Serah with all her might.

Serah ducked the pillow easily, glad that she'd remembered some of Lightning's situational awareness training and replied with a well-placed swipe of her own pillow. Diana went down in dramatic fashion, clutching her stomach and wailing to high heaven about how she'd been mortally wounded, complete with gory sound effects. Naturally, Averia was determined to take revenge for her fallen sister and came after Serah with a flurry of strikes. Unfortunately, skilled parents or not, Averia was still young and Serah had learned the noble art of pillow fighting from the best. Thus it wasn't long before Averia was down, as well, defeated by a nicely timed swipe to the side.

"Hehehehe," Vanille said as she gave Claire a little bop on the head with her pillow. "It looks like the adults win this one." Stepping into the fort, she raised her pillow to whack King Snaggles over the head.

Whack.

"Huh?" Vanille the Vengeful turned around just in time to receive another whack over the head from Serah. "What are you doing?"

Serah smirked at Claire who was looking at her with a look absolute awe. "I, Serah the Spectacular would never betray my daughter. I may have looked like I was on our team, Vanille, but I was actually a spy for my daughter's team!"

"A spy for your daughter's team?" Vanille hefted her pillow. "I'll show you how Vanille the Vengeful deals with traitors!"

What followed was a battle of epic proportions as Serah the Spectacular and Vanille the Vengeful fought to determine which of them was truly the better pillow fighter. Unfortunately for King Snaggles, it was Vanille who ended up victorious, the red head pointing her scruffy pillow at Serah's chest as the other woman lay on the ground.

"Yield!" Vanille ordered.

"I yield," Serah said as she pushed Vanille's pillow away. "I'm sorry, girls, it looks like I was no match for your Aunt Vanille."

"No, mommy, you were awesome!" Claire said. "I bet Aunt Vanille only beat you because she cheated!"

Vanille scowled and Serah chuckled. "I don't think Aunt Vanille cheated."

"But she's on the bad team," Diana said as though it were the most obvious thing in the world. "That means she's probably a cheater."

Just then there was a ring from the kitchen and Serah stood up and dusted herself off. "Well, it sounds like dinner is ready. Come on, help me get everything ready."

X X X

After dinner, which, as usual, was an interesting exercise in crowd control, Vanille helped Serah get the dished cleaned up tidied away. Past experience had taught both of them that the girls' enthusiasm for helping didn't necessarily translate into results. More often than not, the three ended up making a mess of things with the soap and water.

"You know," Vanille said as she gave Serah a wry smile. "You're not too bad with a pillow."

Serah grinned back. "I learned from Lightning." She flexed her shoulders. "I'm a little rusty though."

"That's to be expected, I suppose." Vanille reached for another dish to dry off. "One of these days we should probably organise a family match or something. We could have you and Snow take on Fang and Lightning."

Serah chuckled. "I'm not so sure that would be a good idea."

"Why not?" Vanille asked. Snow was pretty big so he couldn't be too bad in a pillow fight, although Lightning did use a sword and she'd probably use the fight as an excuse to… oh. "Yeah, you're probably right about that. Lightning would probably find a way to kill Snow with a pillow. Either that, or she'd stuff her pillow with rocks."

Serah giggled. "The scary thing is that I can actually imagine that." She glanced back toward the living room. "We're just about done here. We should probably go see what they're up to now."

"Just make sure you're ready for an ambush," Vanille said. "And just to be clear, I've got my eye on you, miss Serah the Spectacular."

Serah flushed and swatted at Vanille with a dishcloth. "Oh, like you can talk, Vanille the Vengeful."

As it was, there was no ambush, but the three girls did make themselves very clear about their desire to sleep in their newly constructed fort.

"Mommy, can we please sleep in the fort?" Claire asked. "We'll be good, I promise."

Serah looked at her little girl and smiled. She really was adorable. "All right, but only if you behave. I don't want to come here in the middle of the night and find you fighting, or watching television or…" She looked at Averia who actually squirmed a little, "Sneaking candy."

"We promise," Claire said. "Mommy… you know what would be really cool?"

"What?" Serah asked.

"Well, we had to get Aunt Vanille to play with us because we didn't have even teams but maybe if I had a little sister that wouldn't a problem anymore." Claire grinned. "It could be me and her versus Averia and Diana."

"Grargh." Serah ignored Vanille's laughter and looked back at her daughter who was looking up at her quite expectantly. Admittedly, she and Snow had been thinking of having another child, and she knew that Snow would just love it if they had another daughter, but somehow she didn't think having even teams when playing fort was a good reason to have another child. "Uh…"

"What your mommy means," Vanille said as she grinned at Serah, "Is that having another baby is a really serious thing, not something you should do just because you want even teams."

"Oh." Claire looked a little disappointed. "I guess so."

"When are you going to have a baby, Aunt Vanille?" Diana asked. "Mommy says you'd be a great mommy and you always take good care of us."

Vanille flushed. "Okay, enough questions," she clapped her hands together. "It's about time for you three to go to bed, so how about a story?"

"Okay!" All three girls said.

"How about you tell the story," Serah said to Vanille. "It would be good practice for you, you know, when you decide to have kids."

Vanille gave Serah a look to make sure that the younger Farron knew she was treading on dangerous ground. "Well, I suppose I could. It has been a while since I've told you three a story."

"Yeah, it has," Claire said, "And your stories are always really good too." She paused. "I bet Aunt Fang steals a lot of them, doesn't she?"

"She does not!" Diana growled. "Does she?"

Vanille chuckled and patted Diana lightly on the head. "Only a couple of them." In truth a lot of Fang's stories were 'borrowed' from Vanille, but that didn't really matter. It was more than enough for her that someone was enjoying the stories. It meant that Oerba's culture was still alive and so long as someone knew the stories, Oerba's culture would never be forgotten. "But what I'm going to tell you is a super secret story that no one has ever heard before, not even your mommy, Diana." The children all looked suitably impressed and Vanille smirked at Serah. "How about you listen to this one too, Serah, I'm sure you'll like it." When everyone was settled in, she continued. "Now my story happens a long, long time ago. In fact, it happened during the War of Transgression. Do you all know what that is?"

Averia nodded. "Wasn't that when Cocoon and Gran Pulse were fighting each other?"

"Yes, that's right." Vanille and Fang had talked long and hard with the others about how much the children should know about the war. Both sides had done terrible things and they all agreed that it was probably best that the children not be told everything until they were old enough to make sense of it. Still, the war wasn't something that they wanted to ignore completely, so the girls did know of its existence. "The War of Transgression happened a long, long time ago when Cocoon and Gran Pulse were at war." Vanille sighed dramatically. "It was a very tough war, and lots and lots of people fought. Many bad things happened and a lot of good people lost their lives. Because of all that, many people got very, very angry and perhaps no one was angrier than the Warrior."

"The Warrior?" Claire asked. "Doesn't he have a name?"

"The Warrior was a woman," Vanille replied, "And the reason she doesn't have a name is because the war happened so long ago that no one can really remember." She smiled. "However, I do know that the Warrior was from the Yun clan."

"That's mommy's clan!" Diana chirped.

Serah smiled at Diana's reaction and the proud grin on Averia's face. Both of Lightning and Fang's children were extremely proud of their Gran Pulse heritage and Serah knew how pleased Fang was that they embraced not only Lightning's side of the family tree, but hers as well.

"Yep," Vanille said, "Your mommy does come from the Yun clan. Now, the Yun clan were a strong clan of warriors. In fact, they were the strongest warriors in all of Gran Pulse." She smirked. "That's one of the reasons your mommy is so strong, but really, the reason she's strong is because of all the people she wants to protect." She reached over and tweaked Diana's nose, earning a giggle. "Anyway, the Warrior was from the Yun clan and she was the strongest out of all of them. In fact, the Warrior was the strongest Yun there had even been, which meant that she was super, super strong."

"Wow." All three girls had a glazed look in their eyes and Vanille could practically see what they were imagining: some awesomely heroic woman slaughtering seemingly endless hordes of monsters.

"Yeah, wow." Vanille put on a sad face. "But although she was strong, the Warrior's life was sad. You see, when she was very young, bad people from Cocoon came and attacked her village. Many people were killed, including the Warrior's family, so she became an orphan. Luckily, though, she made many friends at the orphanage and they became her new family. However, she could never forget what had happened and so the Warrior trained very, very hard so that one day she would be strong enough to take revenge on Cocoon."

"That's really sad," Claire said. "Why did the people from Cocoon have to be so mean?"

Vanille sighed. "War is a really sad thing, Claire, and even good people can do bad things during a war. The people of Cocoon were told all kinds of horrible things about the people of Gran Pulse, things that weren't true, just so that they would think that killing them would be the right thing to do. But listen, killing should never be the first you try when you've got a problem, it should be the very last thing, because once you kill someone you can't take it back." She paused to make sure that all three of the girls understood the importance of what she'd said. "Eventually, the Warrior became known across all of Gran Pulse and she journeyed far and wide training and fighting to try and become even stronger. Along the way, she encountered many, many soldiers from Cocoon, but she was also able to win, at least until she met… the Soldier."

Averia's brow crinkled. "The Soldier? Doesn't she have a name either?"

Vanille grinned. "What makes you think that the soldier was a woman?"

"Well, why not?" Averia sat up. "Mom's a soldier and she's a woman."

Evidently, Vanille thought, the girls hadn't yet realised that their family, whilst normal to them, was hardly normal elsewhere. Even though the Guardian Corps allowed woman to join, there were still far more men in it than women. "Point taken," Vanille said. "And, as a matter of fact, you're right. The Soldier, whose name we don't know because of how long ago all of this happened, was a woman too." There was a rustle of blankets and Vanille suddenly found herself with an armful of Diana as the girl crawled into her lap. Just like Fang, Diana seemed to relish physical contact and given how many times Vanillle had done just the same thing and curled up in Fang's lap, she thought it would be only fair of her to return the favour. "The Soldier was one of the best fighters in all of Cocoon and when the leaders of Cocoon heard about the Warrior, they gave the Soldier a terrible mission – she was to find the Warrior and kill her!"

The children gasped.

"So, the Soldier searched far and wide for the Warrior and when she finally found her, the two of them fought." Vanille's eyes shone as though she were reliving an old memory. "Their fight happened on the top of a mountain and it was the stuff of legends. The Soldier was a swordswoman and each strike of her blade was as swift as lightning and as powerful as thunder. Against anyone else, she would have won easily, but the Warrior was a match for her. The Warrior fought with all the strength and ferocity of a dragon, and each blow of the Soldier's sword was matched by a blow of the Warrior's spear. The two of them fought for hours and hours until finally a great storm interrupted their battle and they were forced to stop. However, that wasn't the last time they fought, for wherever the Warrior went, the Soldier followed and each time they found themselves evenly matched.

"However, one day, the Warrior was ambushed by some other soldiers from Cocoon. Although she was able to beat them, she was separated from her friends and badly poisoned. It was at that moment that the Soldier appeared again and because the Warrior was badly poisoned the Soldier was able to defeat her easily."

Claire gasped. "Did the Soldier kill the Warrior?"

Vanille smiled and shook her head. "Actually, she didn't. In fact, the Soldier took the Warrior to a small cottage hidden away on a mountain and nursed her back to health."

"But why?" Averia asked. "Wasn't she supposed to kill her?"

"Yes, she was," Vanille said, "But the Soldier was an honourable person, a good person. If she was going to kill the Warrior, it would have to be in a fair fight, with both of them at their very best." She chuckled. "Of course, when the Warrior woke up and saw what had happened, she was very surprised, and at first she didn't want to believe the Soldier when the Soldier explained why she was looking after her. After all, all of the people from Cocoon that the Warrior had met had been cowardly and dishonourable, but as the days passed and the Soldier continued to look after her, the Warrior realised that the Soldier really was a good person. Eventually, after a few weeks, the two of them parted ways, with the Soldier promising that the next time they met, it would be like before, and only one of them would leave the battle alive."

Vanille laughed. "But the next time they fought, things were different. During their time together, the two of them had talked a lot about their lives and the Soldier had come to know the Warrior very well, and she had grown to realise that not all of the things she'd been told about the people of Gran Pulse were true. In the same way, the Warrior had also come to realise that not all the people of Cocoon were bad people. So, when they fought, it wasn't like before, because they could no longer bring themselves to try to kill one another. Instead they fought simply to see which one of them was better, for neither of them had ever faced an opponent so skilled before. In the end, they fought until they were exhausted, but instead of being angry that neither of them had been able to win – for their battle had ended in a drawn – they both laughed, for they had never enjoyed themselves so much."

"Did they become friends then?" Diana asked.

"Yep," Vanille said. "Although neither of them would admit it at the time. But, as the months passed, and they continued to fight, they found themselves liking each other more and more until they had no choice but to admit that they really were friends." She frowned. "But they had to be careful, even if they were friends, their people were still enemies and if anyone ever found out, they would be in big trouble, because people from both sides would go after them. Only two other people in the whole world knew that they were friends, the Warrior's friend who was like her sister, and the Soldier's sister."

"What happened then?" Claire asked. "I bet someone else found out about it!"

"Not exactly," Vanille said. "In fact, for a while, the Soldier and the Warrior were very happy. The Soldier pretended to chase after the Warrior so that they could continue to meet and before long she found herself missing the Warrior whenever they were apart. The Warrior too looked forward to their meetings, and whenever they were apart the Warrior wanted nothing more than to be with the Soldier again. Eventually, the two realised that they weren't just friends – they were in love – and though they were both scared to admit it, both of them were overjoyed to find out that the other felt the same."

"That's icky," Diana said. "I bet they kissed and everything."

Serah laughed. "Kissing is quite normal for people who are in love. Your mom and mommy kiss all the time don't they?" Seeing the horrified look on Diana and Averia's face, Serah looked at Claire and added, "And I kiss your father all the time, don't I, Claire?"

"Yes, you do," Claire said as she made a face. "Too much."

"Anyway," Vanille said. "The Soldier and the Warrior became lovers, but it was very hard for them, because they always had to meet in secret and when others were around, they had to act like they hated each other. Yet, as hard as it was, the two of them were happy, as happy as only two people who are truly in love can be. But all of that changed when one day, when the Warrior was away meeting with the Soldier, the Warrior's village was attacked. Although the village was able to fight off the attack, many people were hurt, even killed, and the friend that the Warrior loved like her own sister was badly hurt. The Warrior flew into a rage – it was just like what had happened when she was younger, and she accused the Soldier of betraying her, of luring her away so that her village could be attacked.

"Did the Soldier really do that?" Diana asked. "Because you said the she loved the Warrior, so she wouldn't do that, would she?"

Vanille shook her head. "No, the Soldier didn't do that, it was just bad luck that the Warrior and Soldier had met up at that time. However, you have to remember, the Warrior was a very emotional person, and she'd already lost everything once and would do anything to prevent that happening again. The Warrior said some very mean things to the Soldier and drove her away, vowing never to trust anyone from Cocoon ever again. After that, the Warrior trained harder than ever before, so hard, in fact, that she was chosen by one of the fal'Cie of Gran Pulse to become their champion and strike down Cocoon.

"The Warrior gladly accepted the task, because it meant that she would finally have her revenge against Cocoon. Using the power she'd been given, the Warrior transformed into a powerful monster, one so powerful that it could even destroy Cocoon!" The girls gasped in awe and Vanille saw a glint of unreadable emotion flash through Serah's eyes. "The Warrior attacked Cocoon and because she was so strong, there was no one would could stop her – she even managed to tear a hole in Cocoon. Eventually, the leaders of Cocoon became desperate and they sent the Soldier out to fight the Warrior, knowing that she was the only one who could stop her."

"Did they fight, I mean, for real?" Claire asked softly. "Because that would be sad. They loved each other."

"Yes, they did love each other, even then," Vanille said. "But the Warrior's heart was filled with anger and so she attacked the Soldier with all of her might, but instead of defending herself, the Soldier let the Warrior strike her down." The girls' eyes widened and Vanille pushed on. "When the Warrior saw what she had done, her anger vanished and for the first time, she stopped and looked around her. All around her, she could see all the things she'd destroyed, all the people she'd hurt and killed, and she realised, perhaps for the very first time, that the people of Cocoon weren't monsters. They were just people, misguided maybe, but people all the same, just like her own people on Gran Pulse. And worst of all, she saw that in her rage, she hadn't just attacked the soldiers, she'd attacked everyone around her, even children. The Warrior let out a cry of horror at what she'd done and would have fled, but the Soldier gathered the last of her strength and stopped her, because there was something she wanted to tell the Warrior before she died."

Vanille paused and swallowed thickly. "The Warrior begged the Soldier for forgiveness and promised that she'd never ever do anything so bad again, if only the Soldier would live. However, the Soldier knew that she was dying and instead asked the Warrior to listen closely to what she had to say." Vanille's lip trembled. "This is what the Soldier said: In the beginning, the goal of a warrior is to become one with their sword. A skilled warrior learns to turn even a blade of grass into a weapon. Later on, a warrior needs no sword – they become the sword, and they can kill an opponent from a hundred paces with nothing more than their bare hands. But the ideal of all warriors is when the sword disappears altogether. When that happens, a warrior understands that the answer to death is not more death. The desire to kill disappears and only love remains." Vanille smiled sadly. "And that was all the Soldier said before she died."

"What does all that mean?" Claire said quietly. "I don't understand."

Vanille smiled faintly. "Neither did the Warrior, at first, so I'll let you think about it for a little while. Confused, and stricken with grief, the Warrior fled Cocoon and returned to Gran Pulse. Many there praised her for what she had done, but the Warrior could find no joy in it. In fact, she grieved day and night and so great were the depths of her sorrow that eventually Divine Etro took pity on her and appeared before her."

"Really? Etro appeared?" Diana asked.

Vanille chuckled. Fang had done a pretty good job of explaining their beliefs to her children, and though the children hadn't grasped all the subtleties, they knew enough to understand that Etro didn't just appear to anybody. "Yes, Etro herself appeared to the Warrior. Etro asked the Warrior why she was grieving and so the Warrior explained to Etro all that happened. When she was done, she begged Etro to end her suffering, to strike her down for killing the one she had loved most in the whole world, but Etro refused. Instead, Etro asked the Warrior if she understood the Soldier's words. Tearfully, the Warrior admitted that she did not." Vanille looked around. "Have any of you worked out what the Soldier meant?"

Surprisingly, it was Serah who spoke. "The Soldier understood that the war would never end so long as they fought with hatred in their hearts, because someone who fights with only hatred in their heart can only ever destroy, not only themselves, but everything around them." Her eyes shimmered. "The Soldier loved the Warrior so much that she was willing to give her life so that the Warrior could be freed from her hate, so that she would never become a monster."

Vanille nodded slowly. "Actually, that's about right, Serah. When Etro told the Warrior the meaning of the Soldier's words, the Warrior's grief grew greater still and Etro's heart was moved. She asked the Warrior how much she loved the Soldier and do you know what the Warrior said?" Vanille closed her eyes. "The Warrior said: I would gladly turn to crystal and endure 500 years for her, 500 years of tearing wind, 500 years of scorching sun, and 500 years of sorrow and regret, and all I would ask in return is the chance to see her just one more time."

Vanille swallowed back the lump in her throat. "Divine Etro was so moved by the Warrior's words that she granted the Warrior's wish. With her great power, she transformed the Warrior into crystal and promised the Warrior that if she could endure for 500 years then she could see the Soldier again." Vanille chuckled softly. "Etro told the Warrior that although the cycle of life and death might turn, though flesh might age and die, love, true love, between two souls lasts forever and not even 500 years of tearing wind, 500 years of scorching sun, or even 500 years of sorrow and regret could separate the Warrior and the Soldier if their love was true."

"Well… what happened next?" Diana asked. "Did they really see each other again?"

Vanille ruffled the girl's hair. "Of course they did." She smirked. "The Warrior and the Soldier really did love each other, you know, the kind of love that goes on always and always, forever and ever." She met Serah's gaze over the top of Diana's head. "But unbeknownst to the Warrior, Divine Etro had given her another gift for Etro was as merciful as she was wise. When the Warrior changed back from being crystal, she had no memory of the Soldier so that when they met again, it was as if for the first time, without all the sorrow and regret of their past lives to hold them back. Even without their memories though, the Warrior and the Soldier fell in love again, because true love always finds a way, even if sometimes, it has to wait a little while."

"That was a nice ending," Claire said softly. "Really nice."

"Did they have kids and everything?" Averia asked.

Vanille chuckled. "Two lovely daughters, actually." She looked at Diana who was blinking sleepily. "Now, how about you three tuck yourselves in?"

X X X

Serah waited until she was sure that all three of the children were asleep before she confronted Vanille. The other woman was in the dining room, the lights dimmed down and a mug of hot chocolate in front of her. There was a pack of marshmallows on the table too and as Serah watched, Vanille opened the pack and dipped one into her hot chocolate.

"Hey," Vanille said as she gestured at another mug of hot chocolate. "Why don't you have some?"

Serah took a seat beside Vanille and took a sip of hot chocolate. It was just how she liked it. "That was quite a story, Vanille."

"Yeah, it was, wasn't it?" Vanille dipped another marshmallow into her hot chocolate. "Snow and Hope have been out all night. I hope they didn't run into any trouble. Lightning is going to strangle them if they let anything happen to New Bodhum while she and Fang are off at that Guardian Corps conference."

Serah smiled. With her sister and Fang gone, Hope and Snow had been left to provide back up in case any serious trouble occurred while they were gone. Vanille had been more than happy to stay over in the meantime – a precaution that both Fang and Lightning had insisted upon, not just for the children, but for Serah, as well. Serah appreciated the gesture, even if she did think it was quite unlikely that wild animals would just wander into their house in the middle of town. Still, she thought as she gave herself a little shake, she couldn't let Vanille distract her. "Don't try and change the subject, Vanille." She narrowed her eyes a fraction. "Just how much of that story is made up and how much of it is real?"

Vanille grinned teasingly. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Don't play dumb," Serah said bluntly. "The Warrior, the Soldier? I think it's pretty clear who you're referring to and I know from talking to Fang that Cocoon was only scarred once and by Ragnarok at that." She softened her voice a little. "Besides, you and Fang were in stasis for five hundred years, right?"

"Well, I'm sure Fang would have mentioned something if things had really gone like in the story," Vanille said. "I doubt she'd leave anything out."

Serah shook her head. "You said yourself that Etro took away the Warrior's memories and you've told me yourself that what you remembered more after crystal sleep than Fang, especially about stuff related to Ragnarok."

Vanille stood and finished her mug of hot chocolate. "In the end, Serah, maybe everything is a story." She patted Serah on the back. "I'm going to go crash in your guest room. Don't stay up too late." She stopped in the doorway and turned, a gentle smile on her face. "But I will say, it was nice to tell that story after so long, especially since I'm the only one who remembers it."

Serah sat at the table for a long time after Vanille was gone. "Just a story, huh?" She shook her head slowly and then smiled. "Whatever you say, Vanille." Once she'd finished her hot chocolate, she went over to the kitchen to wash her mug. As she went, she talked quietly to herself, running over the details of the story again in her mind. "It would definitely explain why Fang and Lightning started arguing like an old married couple the moment they met." She looked over into the living room where the children were sleeping. Somehow, despite starting off on opposite sides of the fort, they were now huddled together under one big pile of blankets and pillows. "Besides, it's nice to think that sometimes things really do just work out."

X X X

**Author's Notes**

As always, I neither own Final Fantasy, nor am I making any money off this.

So, where to start… this particular chapter has been sort of percolating in my mind since last week, largely because of another idea that I had (one involving possible time travel… make of that what you will) and I decided that rather and let it percolate any longer, it would probably be best to just get it out of the way. Unlike the previous chapter, which was largely based on fairytales and Disney, this chapter is a mish-mash of the FF XIII plotline and Chinese kung fu movies (yes, you read that correctly, Chinese kung fu movies and FF XIII do mix).

For those who missed it, the story of the Warrior and the Soldier is loosely based on the events preceding FF XIII. Simply replace the Warrior with Fang and the Soldier with Lightning and do a little tweaking to the story line. I've always liked to believe that there was more to the story, and the thought of Fang and Lightning having been together before in a past life was very appealing, especially since it would explain how they seemed to immediately strike a chord in one another. It also makes the fact that Fang ended up back in crystal at the end of FF XIII more tragic. The question then become not what would Fang do for Lightning, but what would Lightning do for Fang (although, seriously, I'm not sure how you top 500 years of being crystal…)?

At this point I would also like to acknowledge two movies. The first is Hero (the one with Jet Li in it). Not only is the film visually stunning, but it also supplied the basis for what the Soldier told the Warrior as she lay dying. In particular, the Soldiers words were patterns after those of the King of Qi, who after observing the calligraphy of Broken Sword and speaking with Nameless remarked "I have just come to a realization! This scroll by Broken Sword contains no secrets of his swordsmanship. What this reveals is his highest ideal. In the first state, man and sword become one and each other. Here, even a blade of grass can be used as a lethal weapon. In the next stage, the sword resides not in the hand but in the heart. Even without a weapon, the warrior can slay his enemy from a hundred paces. But the ultimate ideal is when the sword disappears altogether. The warrior embraces all around him. The desire to kill no longer exists. Only peace remains." Of course, the quote has been changed a little to fit the story (the King of Qi's point is somewhat different from the Soldier's) but the importance of understanding the ideal of a warrior is the same.

The second movie that I would like to acknowledge is Reign of Assassins, which apart from having an awesome title (who needs a murder of crows when you can have a reign of assassins), serves as the basis for the Warrior's reply to Etro when Etro asks how much she loves the Soldier. In the movie, a monk sacrifices himself so that the main character, a female assassin, can finally see the wrongness of her path and renounce violence. Did I mention that the two of them were in love? Anyway, when the assassin asks the monk why he sacrificed himself, he replies "I would turn into a stone bridge and endure 500 years of wind, and endure 500 years of sunlight, and 500 years of rain, and all I ask of her is to cross it." Later, the assassin asks the monk's master what his words meant, and it turns out that the monk was quoting a reply given by a student for Buddha when Buddha asked him how much he loved a certain woman. In any case, I loved the quote (and the movie, definitely worth a watch) and couldn't wait to slip it in somewhere.

Wow, this author's note just gets longer and long so I think I'll just end it here.

As always, I appreciate feedback. Reviews and comments are welcome.


	3. Chapter 3

**Little Red Lightning Hood**

"Daddy, can we have pizza tonight?"

Snow looked over at Claire and grinned. His little girl was doing her best to look as cute as possible, which really wasn't all that difficult considering how much she looked like her mother. Besides, there was nothing he hated more than disappointing than disappointing her and after a whole week of healthy eating, a Friday night pizza didn't sound half bad.

"Sure, we can get pizza." Snow made a zipping up gesture across his lips and smiled at the two other girls who were also at the dinner table with Claire. "But don't let your Aunt Lightning know."

All three girls giggled and then nodded quickly. "Okay."

"If you don't want my mom to know," Averia said, "Then we should probably throw the pizza boxes straight into the garbage bin outside, not the one in the kitchen." She scowled. "That's how she found out the last time mommy snuck us pizza when we were grounded."

Snow grimaced. "That's pretty scary." Lightning had always been pretty big on the whole healthy eating thing, but even he hadn't expected her to be so thorough. Then again, she did tend to pay pretty close attention to everything, and several pizza boxes sticking out of the garbage bin in the kitchen wasn't exactly subtle. Fang could be pretty scary too when she put her mind to it, but most of the time she seemed content to let Lightning carry the hatchet – both figuratively and literally. "In that case, I'll definitely remember to throw the pizza boxes straight into the garbage bin outside then. So, what flavours do you all want?"

Claire frowned for a moment and Snow was struck by the urge to ruffle her hair. She looked so adorable agonising over what flavour of pizza to get like it was a matter of life and death. "I think I'll get ham and pineapple on my pizza," she said at last.

Snow chuckled. "That's exactly what you got last time, and the time before that."

"Well, that doesn't mean I can't get it again," Claire huffed. "It tasted really good, so I want to get it again."

"Fine, fine." Snow turned to Averia and Diana. "What about you two?"

Averia pursed her lips. "I think I'll get that one with vegetables on it."

A look of horror crossed Diana's face and she turned to point one finger at her sister. "You can't get that one!"

"Why not?" Averia frowned and pushed Diana's finger out of her face. "Uncle Snow asked us to choose what flavour of pizza we want and that's the one I want."

"But it's pizza," Diana wailed. "You can't ruin it by putting vegetables on it. That's not the point of pizza at all!" She threw her hands up in despair. "You might as well eat broccoli."

Snow sniggered. Despite the increasingly ferocious scowl on Averia's face, Diana's words did make sense in a bizarre child-centric way. He and Serah had to fight tooth and nail to get Claire to eat her vegetables and he knew that Lightning and Fang had exactly the same sort of problem with Averia and Diana. Every bit as stubborn as both her parents, Diana probably saw her sister's decision to get vegetables on her pizza – one of the least healthy foods they were allowed – as some kind of hideous betrayal, a surrender in the never ending war between them and their parents over what constituted a decent meal.

"It's different," Averia insisted with a firm shake of her head. "It's pizza, so the vegetables don't count." She looked at Claire. "Besides, Claire is getting pineapple on her pizza and pineapples are fruits."

"But pineapples are special," Claire replied. "They're… cooler than other fruits and vegetables." Diana nodded in agreement. "But maybe you can put some other stuff on your pizza to balance the vegetables out, Averia, like extra sauce or meat or something."

Snow's mouth twitched. "Okay, that's enough." He smiled. "How about this? Since we're not telling Aunt Lightning about the pizza, she'll never know about the vegetables and if she does find out, since we'll all be in trouble anyway, we can say that Averia's pizza had lots of horrible things on it, like chocolate and candy."

Diana looked at Snow like he was the most incredible person who'd ever lived. "That's a really good idea, Uncle Snow. You're awesome."

"I know, I know," Snow said, patting her on the head. "But try telling that to your mom. Now, what about you Diana?"

"I want one with just cheese on it." Diana's eyes narrowed ominously. "Just cheese."

Averia gawked for a moment and then rounded on her sister. "Just cheese? Your pizza is almost as healthy as mine!"

"No, it's not," Diana countered. "There's no vegetables on it and that makes it way better than yours."

Snow chuckled. "Look, stop fighting, pizza is pretty bad for you no matter what you put on it, so just stay here and keep doing your homework while I call the pizza place."

Leaving the three girls at the dinner table, he went over to the phone and quickly got the pizza ordered. Although the pizza place wasn't all that far away and he could drive there, it would probably be better to have it delivered. It was just him and the girls tonight and there was no telling what they'd get up to without him around.

The order went off without a hitch and Snow headed back to the dinner table. Provided that nothing went wrong, the pizza should arrive in about twenty minutes. When he got back to the dinner table, he wasn't the least bit surprised that Averia and Diana were both still arguing about whose pizza was better. They were just like their parents and much like Serah often had to, Claire was doing her best to try and get them to settle down. Of course, that didn't last long. All it took was one word from Averia about her pizza and Claire was arguing right along with them.

Content to watch them for just a little while longer, Snow couldn't help but wonder how things would be once the girls started growing up. They'd probably get into all sorts of trouble and once they were old enough, they'd probably start worrying about boys and girls. He smiled. He could already see Lightning chasing potential suitors off with her gunblade. Heck, knowing her, she'd probably send the Guardian Corps around to rough them up too, just for good measure.

However, Snow's smile faded as he realised that Claire would also be on the receiving end of a lot of attention. She looked just like a little version of her mother and if she looked anything like Serah had as a teenager, there would be no shortage of people after her. Well, he'd see about that. His little girl deserved nothing but the best and if some punk kid thought that they could waltz in and… oh… man, he was starting to think like Lightning.

"Daddy, can you help me with this one," Claire asked as she held up her exercise book and pointed at one of the problems.

Snow ambled over to the table and sat down beside Claire. Both Claire and Averia were in the third grade – the same class, actually – and what they'd been doing before the little argument over pizza was their maths homework. Some of the problems looked pretty tricky, at least for a third grader, and Snow bit back a smile as he caught the deep frown on Averia's face. Just like her parents, she would never, ever ask for help. Claire, on the other hand, was much more open to the idea that asking for help was okay. In fact, that was one of the things that Snow had tried very hard to get into Claire's head. Sure, he wasn't a philosophical man – he just did what his heart told him was right – but he'd seen how badly things could go when people refused to reach out to each other and he didn't want that sort of thing to happen to his daughter. It might just be homework now, but if someone couldn't ask for help over something as little as that, there was no way that they were going to ask for help when it came to bigger things.

Still, he was pretty relieved that Claire was only doing addition and subtraction with a few relatively straightforward multiplication and division questions. If there had been long division to do, he'd have been in some real trouble and he was not about to call Serah to ask for help doing long division.

"Are these the problems that you want help with?" Snow asked. Claire nodded. "Well, here's what you do…"

For the next twenty minutes, Snow helped Claire through her homework. Help, however, was probably a bit of an overstatement. After a few little pointers at the start, all he really did was watch. It was probably a little sappy, but he'd always found it fascinating to watch Claire do simple things like homework. She had so many of Serah's mannerisms, like the way she'd frown when she didn't understand something, or pout when she got the wrong answer. Just thinking about the fact that she was his and Serah's daughter made him feel warm inside. He grinned. Really, he was starting to sound all sentimental like Sazh. Maybe he was getting old.

At the same time though, Snow didn't miss the fact that Averia had been listening in the whole time he was explaining things to Claire, although the girl did her best to hide it. She was a little too much like Fang and Lighting that way. On the opposite side of the spectrum was Diana. The youngest of the three girls was still in kindergarten, so rather than doing homework, she was instead filling an exercise book with colourful pictures. The most recent one was a florid illustration of Gary the Gorgonopsid sitting around a campfire with what looked to be Odin and Bahamut. He smirked. Knowing Diana, it wouldn't be long before the girl tried to get her parents to recreate the scene for her with their Eidolons and an unfortunate gorgonopsid.

The doorbell rang and after paying for the pizza, Snow got all of two steps before three starving girls pounced on him. It was a testament to how big and strong he was that he managed to not only keep the pizza boxes from falling to the floor, he did so with Claire on his back and Averia and Diana dangling off his arms.

Halfway through the meal, with all three girls practically inhaling their food, Claire finally got around to asking the question that Snow had been dreading.

"Where's mommy?" Claire asked. "She said she was going out tonight, but she didn't say where."

"She's with your Aunts," Snow said. "You know, Lightning, Fang, Vanille, and Lebreau." Please, he thought, let it end there.

He wasn't that lucky.

"But what are they doing?" Claire asked. "Is there trouble somewhere?"

Snow grimaced. Oh yes, there would definitely be trouble. Honestly, this was one of the few times when he wasn't happy about his daughter's intelligent and inquisitive nature. Now, how to put things? Perhaps it was best to just go with the truth. "They're going for a girls' night out."

"What is that?" Averia asked. "Mommy said the same thing this morning and then she laughed." She paused. "Then mom kind of looked at her funny, like bad funny."

Snow paused for a long moment. He could, of course, give the girls a number of examples regarding previous girls' nights out, but that probably wouldn't be a good idea. After all, it hadn't been all that long ago when that same group of five had gotten into trouble. The problem was that with Lebreau involved, the number of sane people, usually Lightning and Serah, were outnumbered by the crazy people, usually made up of Lebreau, Vanille, and Fang, by a margin of three to two. Democracy, it seemed, was not without its dangers.

That particular outing had, apparently, involved a large number of female strippers dressed in Guardian Corps uniforms. They had also worn pink wigs and, just for added fun, every single one of them had carried around fake handcuffs. Lebreau had been the one to come up with it and needless to say Fang had found the whole thing absolutely hilarious, or at least she had until Lightning had made her disapproval known in very strident terms. It had taken a combination of luck, expert dodging ability and Fang, Vanille, and Serah all tackling Lightning to the ground to ensure that Lebreau made it out alive.

Then there was the fishing trip.

Lebreau hadn't been around for that one, but it hadn't really mattered all that much in the end. In an attempt to avoid a repeat of the stripper debacle – one that had been made even worse by the fact that Hope, of all people, had been the Guardian Corps officer to respond to the complaints of a large fight – Vanille had organised a fishing trip. That was a big mistake. She really, really should have known better than to choose an activity that could be seen as a competition. As with most things involving Fang and Lightning that could be seen as a competition, the fishing trip had degenerated into a battle for supremacy. Fang might seem more easygoing than Lightning, but she hated losing every bit as much. Serah and Vanille had found the whole thing quite nice to watch until both Fang and Lightning had seriously begun to consider using their Eidolons to try and seize victory.

So, naturally, when Serah had told Snow that she and the others were going for a girls' night out, he hadn't asked what they were going to do. Frankly, he didn't want to know, because it was likely that he'd be the one to deal with the aftermath. By not knowing he could at least truthfully claim ignorance about whatever insane scheme Lebreau was sure to come up with and thereby avoid ending up dead. After all, it would be a shame if Claire had to grow up without a father.

"Uh… daddy, are you okay?" Claire asked. "You had this really weird look on your face."

"Oh." Snow sighed. Time to take a shot at explaining things. "Okay, a girls' night out is when… well, you know how your mommy is really busy a lot of the time?" Claire nodded. "A girls' night out is a chance for her to go out with all her friends and have some fun."

"Wow." Claire grinned. "That sounds really fun, but why aren't you going, daddy?"

"It's kind of a special thing. You see, on a girls' night out, only girls go," Snow said.

"Oh. Well, is there a boys' night out or something?" Claire asked.

Snow winced. There was absolutely no way that he was going to go there. "Yes, there is, but how about we talk about that later?" He grinned and reached for a slice of Claire's pizza. "All this talking is making me hungry. How about you give me some of your pizza?

"No!" Claire giggled as she slapped his hand away. "That's mine!"

A flash of movement in the corner of his eye got Snow's attention and he turned to find Averia eyeing his pizza longingly. "Hey, worry about finishing your own pizza before you try and sneak some of mine." He grinned. "And you might want to turn around."

Averia turned. "Hey!" she growled. "Put that down, Diana, that's a slice of my pizza!"

Diana smirked. "Not anymore."

Once dinner was finished, Snow immediately put the pizza boxes in the garbage bin outside. Based on past experience, the girls' night out was sure to end in disaster and he did not need to paint a target on his back by letting it slip that he'd gotten the girls pizza. Now, all he had to do was wait for the girls to finish their homework and then it would be time for them to have a bath and then head off to bed.

As always, bath time was an interesting experience. He'd learned the hard way that no matter what he did, having the three girls in the bathtub was never going to end well, especially when all three of them firmly believed that they were entitled to the most space. As usual, the battle to become ruler of the bathtub ended in a draw, with most of the water ending up on the floor along with the rubber Bahamut that Claire had insisted they buy. Honestly, why couldn't they have gotten a rubber Shiva?

After bath time, it was time to head off to bed and since Fang and Lighting would be coming over after their girls' night out to carry Diana and Averia back to their house, he didn't see the harm in letting the three kids hunker down in his and Serah's bed. Besides, it was the only bed big enough to hold the three of them and he did not want a repeat of last week, when all three girls had determined that they really all could fit in Claire's bed. They couldn't, and they'd ended up on the floor in a tangle of limbs and blankets that had left all of them too irritated to go to sleep.

"Tell us a story, Uncle Snow!" Diana cried. She was in the middle of the bed and had already begun to cling to Averia.

"Sure," Snow said as he got a chair and sat down beside the bed. "What kind of story do you want to hear?"

"It has to have a gorgonopsid in it," Diana said. "A cool one."

"And sisters," Averia said.

"And fighting too," Claire added. "There has to be fighting otherwise it'll be boring."

Snow chuckled. He probably shouldn't have asked them what kind of story they wanted, and he wasn't entirely sure what to make of Claire's request that there be lots of fighting in it. Then again, with people like him, Fang, and Lightning around, it probably wasn't that much of a surprise that Claire liked fighting, or that she was good at it too. The last time a boy had made fun of her pink hair and pushed her, she'd dropped him with a textbook right cross. Sure, there had been trouble, and Serah had been utterly mortified, but it had also been one of the few times that he and Lightning had agreed on something. If that boy didn't want to get punched in the face, he probably shouldn't have made fun of Claire's hair or pushed her.

At Serah's behest, Snow had done all the right things, namely he'd scolded Claire about how hitting people was not the best way to deal with things. Then, once he was sure that no one was looking, he'd shown her the proper way to throw the punch so that her knuckles wouldn't hurt as much. He'd also bought her an ice cream.

"Okay," Snow said after a few more moments of thought. "I think I know a story you might like."

"What's it called?" Claire asked.

Snow paused. "Well… it's called Little Red Riding Hood. It's a good story."

The three girls looked distinctly unimpressed.

"We heard that story at school," Averia said with a frown. "It was really bad."

Claire nodded in agreement. "The girl in it couldn't do anything – she had to get someone else to save her."

Diana waved one fist around in the air. "And the gorgonopsid in it was bad. He should have been good – like Gary."

Snow smirked. He'd anticipated this sort of reaction and had already begun to make a few changes in his head. "It seems like they told you the lame version of Little Red Riding Hood. What I'm about to tell you is the good version, the heroic version of Little Red Riding Hood." And just to reassure them that he was not about to tell them a lame story, he flashed them his most heroic smile. Naturally, Claire was impressed, while Averia's eye twitched in a very Lightning-like fashion. Diana, just quietly stole another pillow for herself.

"Okay," Snow said. "The story begins long, long ago in a village near some deep, dark woods." He waved his hands around in what he hoped was a scary manner. "And in that village there were two sister. Their names were Rose and Helen."

"Those are weird names," Averia said.

"Well, that's just what their names were," Snow replied. He grinned. "I'm sure that there are people who think your name is weird too."

Averia huffed. "I guess."

"Anyway," Snow said, "The two sisters lived all alone because their parents had passed away. However, they weren't poor because the older sister, Rose was a brave and powerful hunter who made a living hunting down monsters and keeping people safe. Everyone in the village, and even in all the towns and cities nearby knew about her and she never had to look hard for work because there were so many monsters around."

"Rose sounds awesome," Diana said.

"Indeed she was," Snow said with a smile. "And so was the younger sister, Helen. Unlike Rose, Helen wasn't a good fighter, but she was kind and smart, and all the children in the village liked her because she looked after them whenever their parents were away working. When she got older, Helen also started a school so that she could make the children smart just like her."

"I like Helen," Claire said. "Mommy always says teaching people is important."

Snow reached forward and ruffled Claire's hair. "Teaching people is very important." He smiled. "Now, one day, Helen met a brave and handsome – and very heroic – woodcutter who made a living cutting down trees in the deep, dark wood and selling them for money. Now, even though the woodcutter and Helen became good friends, it was very hard for them to see each other. You see, because of his job, the woodcutter had to live in the deep, dark woods where there were lots of monsters.

"However, Helen came up with a very clever plan that would make it easier for her to visit the woodcutter. Her sister, Rose, was very famous, not just because of how good she was fighting, but also because of the red riding hood she wore wherever she went. It was very, very famous and all the monsters in the world learned that whenever they saw that red riding hood, they had to run away otherwise Rose would get them. So, Helen bought some cloth in exactly the same shade of red as her sister's red riding hood and made one just like it. Then, whenever she wanted to visit the woodcutter, all she had to do was put on her red riding hood. The monsters would take one look at her and then run away because they thought it was Rose and not Helen."

"That's really smart," Claire said. "I wonder why more people didn't do that though."

Snow laughed. "Well, remember, Helen was very smart and not everyone was as smart as her, so they probably didn't think of it. Anyway, things went on like that for a while until eventually Helen and the woodcutter, who was named Sunou – fell in love. However, even though Helen was very happy, she was also very worried that her sister, Rose, would not like Sunou."

"But why?" Claire asked. "Was he a bad person?"

Snow shook his head. "No, Sunou wasn't a bad person, but he wasn't rich and his house was not only in the middle of the deep, dark woods, it was also very little. Rose wanted her sister to marry someone who could look after her so that Helen would never have to worry about money or a house or anything like that."

Claire frowned and crossed her arms over her chest. "But Helen loved Sunou, isn't that what matters?"

"Yeah," Averia said. "Mommy always says you should marry someone because you love them and not just for their money and stuff."

Diana nodded. "Rose was being a big meanie."

"Well, I wouldn't say that Rose was being a meanie," Snow said with a thoughtful look on his face. "You have to remember that Rose and Helen didn't have parents and Rose's job was very dangerous. She probably just wanted to make sure that no matter what happened to her, Helen would be okay, and that's what sisters should do, shouldn't they?" Grudgingly all three girls nodded. "So, instead of telling Rose, Helen continued to meet Sunou in secret, but unfortunately for them, things were about to change. There was a big drought and the river that flowed through the woods dried up. Because of that, many of the animals that lived in the woods went away and those that stayed grew very hungry." Snow paused and then added dramatically, "And no one was hungrier than… Claw!"

Diana sat up quickly. "Claw? Who was Claw?"

Snow cackled and made claws out of his hands. "Claw was the biggest, scariest gorgonopsid that had ever lived. She was big and strong and black all over and she had these big, gleaming green eyes." He smirked. "She was the ruler of the woods and even if there were other monsters that were bigger than her, it didn't matter, because she fast and clever too, and none of them could beat her."

Diana's eyes shone. "Claw is such a good name. Why couldn't I be named Claw?"

Snow burst out laughing. To be honest, he'd often wondered that exact same thing. After all, Fang was named Fang, so naming a child Claw wouldn't have been that out of the question. Then again, there was just something weird about naming a girl Claw, especially one like Diana who looked far more cute than threatening.

"You'll have to ask your parents about that, Diana," Snow said. "So, Claw was the ruler of the woods, but at the same time, she was a good monster." That got an approving nod from Diana. "Because even though she was big and scary, she only ever attacked other monsters and not people, but after the river dried up, so many animals went away that Claw started thinking that maybe she needed to attack people or she would starve. In fact, one day, she got so hungry that she followed Helen when she was going to visit Sunou, even though Helen was wearing her red riding hood."

"Oh no!" Claire gasped. "Did Helen get eaten?"

"No. Luckily, Helen was able to run away, but she was afraid to tell her sister about Claw because if she did then Rose would ask why she had been in the woods and then Rose would find out about Sunou and get very angry." Snow chuckled. "But unfortunately for Helen, Rose already knew about Sunou because she had talked to some of the other villagers who had seen Helen sneak into the woods. The next day, filled with anger, Rose went into the woods wearing her red riding hood to talk to Sunou."

"She was going to beat him up, wasn't she?" Averia asked.

Snow laughed. "Pretty much." He grinned. "But as Rose walked through the woods, Claw watched her. Remember, Claw had just gone after Helen the day before and so Claw thought Rose was Helen. Because of that, Claw was confident that she could win, because Helen hadn't been able to fight back at all. Finally, Claw thought, she would have some food." Snow once again made his hands into claws. "Finally, halfway to Sunou's house, Claw pounced!" Diana grabbed Averia and Claire. "But Rose was not like Helen – she could fight. So, Rose and Claw fought and fought and fought and for a long time they were evenly matched, but remember, Claw hadn't eaten for a long time, so eventually, Claw got really tired and collapsed to the ground. Rose was just about to kill Claw when…"

"NOOOOO!" Diana screamed.

"But," Snow said, pointedly. "Rose stopped when she saw how thin Claw was. In fact, Claw was little more than skin and bones. That was when Rose realised that Claw had only attacked her because she was starving – remember, Claw had been around for a while now and she'd never attacked other people before. Taking pity on Claw, Rose gave Claw some of her own food and water. From that moment on, Rose and Claw were friends, and Claw even led Rose to Sunou's house as thanks.

"When they got there, Rose challenged Sunou to a fight to the death unless he gave up Helen. However, rather than give up Helen, Sunou accepted Rose's challenge, and even though Rose beat him up really badly, he wouldn't give up. Finally, Rose saw how much Sunou loved Helen and took pity on him. She would let Helen and Sunou be together, but if Sunou ever hurt Helen, then Rose would come back and finish him off. In fact, she'd even have Claw help."

"And then what happened?" Claire asked. "Did they live happily ever after?"

"Well, yes," Snow said. "Sunou and Helen lived happily ever after."

"What about Rose?" Averia asked.

"Yeah, and Claw? What about Claw?" Diana asked as she made several clawing motions through the air with her hands, complete with sound effects.

"Well, they lived happily ever after too," Snow said. "You see, because Claw and Rose had become friends, they went everywhere together. Whenever Rose went hunting, Claw went with her and they became even more famous together than they had been apart. Together, they beat all sorts of really bad monsters and Claw never went hungry again. In fact, Claw never went back to the woods, instead she came to live in the village with Rose and even though some of the villagers were scared at first, it wasn't long before everyone liked Claw, just like Rose did."

"That was a pretty good story," Claire said. "Way better than the version they told us at school."

Diana nodded. "And Claw was awesome."

"Well, I told you it would be good, didn't I?" Snow stood up and turned off the lights. "Now, you three go to sleep. If you need anything, I'll be downstairs on the couch."

Downstairs, Snow stretched out on the couch. There wasn't anything interesting on television and there really wasn't all that much to do until Serah got back. Closing his eyes, he decided that maybe it was time for him to go to bed, as well. A few hours later, he was woken up by someone shaking him gently.

"Serah?" he asked as he blinked his eyes.

Serah smiled. "Hey, have a nice night in?"

Snow grinned. "Not too bad. The kids are upstairs in our bedroom, if you're looking for them." He gave Serah a quick look from head to toe. She seemed fine. "So…" he asked slowly. "How did it go?"

Serah laughed nervously. "Uh…"

And that was when Snow caught sight of Lightning and Fang by the door. There were traces of what looked to be whipped cream on Lightning's face and… was she handcuffed to Fang? Sitting up quickly, he blinked a few times to make sure he wasn't seeing things.

"Hi, Snow," Fang drawled. "How were the kids?"

"Fine, I guess," Snow mumbled. Yes, Fang and Lightning were definitely handcuffed together and the smirk on Fang's face was far too big to be healthy. And where was the rest of Fang's top? The only thing she was wearing above her waist was a bra and… and why was Lightning wearing Fang's sari instead of the shirt she'd left in? Wait… where was the shirt that Lightning had left in? "What –"

"Do not ask what happened." Lightning's eyes promised a swift, horrible death.

Fang laughed and pulled Lightning into an embrace before leaning over to lick off a bit of whipped cream at the corner of Lightning's lips. "Don't worry, Snow, I'm sure Serah will tell you once I get old sour puss here to mellow out a bit." She waved. "We'll just get the kids, okay."

"Wait, aren't you going to take those off?" Snow asked, pointing at the handcuffs.

The heat in Fang's gaze as she looked at Lightning was an almost physical force. "No, not just yet."

As the two women went upstairs to retrieve their daughters, Snow looked at Serah.

"Lebreau's a dead woman isn't she?" he asked.

Serah nodded glumly. "I don't think we'll be able to save her this time."

X X X

**Author's Notes**

As always, I neither own Final Fantasy, nor am I making any money off this.

This is a slightly different sort of chapter from the previous one. I wanted to bring Snow in and I really do think that he's much more likely to opt for a more upbeat fairy tale, as opposed to something bitter sweet.

With regards to inspiration, I'm not entirely sure where to begin. I've wanted to play around with the Little Red Riding Hood story for a while now, because I've never been entirely satisfied by it. As I was thinking about how to mix things up for the sake of this story, I realised that Lightning happens to have a nice red cape. Bang. Instant imagery of Lightning as a gunblade-toting, ass kicking version of Little Red Riding Hood, in other words, Little Red Lightning Hood. I should also mention that one of my favourite video game characters is B. B. Hood from Dark Stalkers. Seriously, that is how Little Red Riding Hood should have been, and that only made me more certain that Little Red Lightning Hood was the way to go.

As for Claw… it probably won't surprise you to find out that Claw is basically Fang for the sake of the story. She already can transform into Ragnarok, so I figured her being a giant gorgonopsid isn't that much of a stretch. Besides, what better way to fulfil Diana's request that the gorgonopsid in the story (this is set in the Final Fantasy XIII universe, so normal wolves aren't going to cut it) be good than to have Claw and Rose (Lightning) end up as monster hunting partners?

Of course, those aren't the only changes that I made to the Little Red Riding Hood storyline. For one, there are people impersonating the real Little Red Riding Hood (i.e., Helen pretends to be her sister), the visit is not to the grandmother (it is to Sunou) and Rose definitely has somewhat less than benevolent intentions toward the person she is visiting (Sunou), she also does not need saving.

For those of you who are curious, here is where the names for the characters come from:

Rose = Lightning

Helen = Serah

Sunou = Snow

Claw = Fang

Rose was chosen as a pseudonym for Lightning because of what a rose is: beautiful, but somewhat prickly if you get too close. Helen is a bit more complicated. In the Language of Flowers, helenium is supposed to symbolise tears, and Helen can easily be reached by shortening helenium (remember, the crystal that Serah leaves Snow is shaped like a tear). Helen is also the name of the woman at the centre of the Trojan War. Replace Troy with Snow and Greece with Lightning and you can have a similarly epic battle over Serah (is it wrong that I can visualise the Iliad with FF characters in it instead of the real ones?). Sunou comes from the romanisation of the Japanese spelling of Snow. Claw, as a word, can easily be related to Fang. It probably doesn't hurt that in my mind, I can easily picture Snow viewing Lightning as Dr Claw from Inspector Gadget, only instead of a cat on her lap, it's Fang. Yes, I am a strange person.

As always, I appreciate feedback. Reviews and comments are welcome.


	4. Chapter 4

**Three Arrows**

When Fang first heard the yelling coming from the front yard, she wasn't all that concerned. She was in the middle of making lunch and when it came to her two daughters and their cousin, a lot of yelling was pretty much what she expected. Sure enough, after a few moments, the yelling stopped.

However, it wasn't long before she heard more yelling and this time, she was concerned. This wasn't the angry yelling she'd heard before. No, this time it was just Diana yelling and she sounded scared, really scared. Lunch forgotten, Fang ran out of the kitchen and into the corridor. On the way to the front door, she caught a glimpse of Averia and Claire watching something on television, but there was no sign of Diana with them.

"Mommy!" Diana shouted. "Mommy, help!"

Fang practically tore the front door off its hinges and sprinted out onto the lawn. It took her just a second to spot Diana and when did, she felt a cold weight settle in her stomach. Diana was in the tall tree that occupied one side of their front yard. That alone wasn't unusual – the girls climbed the tree all the time – but what was unusual was just how high Diana was. After a bit of trial and error Fang and Lightning had laid down rules about how high up the tree the girls were allowed to climb. A blue rope about a third of the way up set the limit for Diana and a red rope about halfway up set the limit for Averia and Claire. Diana was well past the red rope.

"Mommy," Diana wailed as she clutched the tree. "Help, me. I'm stuck!"

"It's all right," Fang said. "I'll come get you. Just… just don't move." If Diana fell from that height she could easily break her arm – or her neck.

Fang gathered herself and then leapt up into the tree. A few seconds later, she was level with Diana and the girl buried her face into Fang's chest and began to weep.

"Easy," Fang said. "I've got you." She wrapped her arms around Diana. "Now, hold on, I'm just going to jump down."

Fang leapt out of the tree and landed lightly on the ground. She tried to put Diana down, but the girl would have none of it. Instead, Diana continued to cling to her and sob. Finally, when Diana's tears had begun to subside into little whimpers and hiccups, Fang eased away.

"What happened?" Fang asked. "Why were you so high up when you know you're not allowed?"

Diana scrubbed at her cheeks, her expression utterly miserably. "I… I wanted to play too, but Averia and Claire just kept climbing higher and higher and… and I didn't want to be left out… so… so I climbed up too and then… and then I got stuck." She sniffled and Fang ran one hand up and down her back to soothe her. "And then… and then they didn't want to play in the tree anymore and then they climbed down but… but I couldn't and…" Diana's tears welled up again. "And then they left me…" More than the tears, the look of betrayal on Diana's face made Fang's heart clench. "I asked them to come help me get down… but… but Averia made fun of me… she said if I wanted to be a big girl then I could get down on my own… she… she called me a cry baby."

Fang's fists clenched, but she forced herself to relax. She was going to have… words with Averia, but there was no point in scaring Diana. "All right." Fang wiped the tears from Diana's face and scooped her up into her arms. "How about we go inside now, okay? I'll get you cleaned up and then you can have a rest in your room."

Diana nodded mutely and tightened her hold on Fang. "Okay, mommy." She looked up at Fang. "Are Averia and Claire going to be in trouble? I… I don't want them to get into trouble because of me." Her lower lip trembled and Fang could see that despite the way she'd been treated, Diana still trusted the older girls. It made something in Fang's chest tighten up.

Fang's eyes narrowed. "Don't worry about that, Diana."

Once she'd gotten Diana cleaned up and tucked into her bed for some rest, Fang stalked into the living room. Averia and Claire were still there watching something on television and from the looks of things they didn't seem the least bit concerned with what had just happened. That was, if they'd even noticed.

"Turn that off," Fang growled as she entered the living room.

"But, mommy," Averia said. "We're watching this –"

"I said turn it off," Fang snapped.

Averia's flinched at Fang's tone. Fang never talked to her like that. Fang was always the nice was. "Mommy?" she whispered softly.

Under normal circumstances, Fang would have softened her tone the moment she saw Averia look a little frightened, but these were not normal circumstances. Face set into a grim scowl, Fang reached over for the television remote and turned off the television. As she turned back to the two girls, she could see that both of them had gone a little pale. Good, they needed to realise that this was not a joke. What they'd done was not something that she could just overlook.

"You two know the rules for climbing the tree, don't you?" Fang asked softly, voice deceptively calm.

Averia nodded slowly. "We know."

"Then why did you break them?" Fang's voice snapped out like a gunshot. "I spoke to Diana outside when I helped her get out of the tree." Both girls gulped. "She told me some interesting things. You know you're not supposed to go above the red rope, but if it was just that I wouldn't be so angry. No, the reason I'm angry is because you let Diana follow you up there. Even worse is that when she got stuck, you didn't help her, did you? You made fun of her and then you left her." Fang spat the last few words out. "You left her."

"Mommy…" Averia started.

"Don't you 'mommy' me!" Fang said. "Was what Diana said true? Did you really leave her up there even after she asked you to help her get down?"

Averia shook. This was the first time her that mommy had ever really been mad at her. Sure, her mommy had been irritated with her a couple of times, but she'd never been this angry before. In fact, Averia realised as her heart began to pound in her chest, she was actually a little scared of her mommy. "Uh… yes…" she stuttered. "But… but it's just that she's always getting in the way and… and me and Claire can climb higher so… so…"

"You're ten years old now, Averia," Fang growled. "And I know that your mom and I raised you to know the difference between right and wrong. Even if she was getting in the way, even if she was being annoying, do you think it was right to leave Diana up there?"

"But we didn't mean for it to happen like that," Claire said, speaking for the first time. "We were going to go get her."

"Really?" Fang asked. "When? After this show was finished, or after the next one? Tell me, when?" Fang's eyes flashed with fury and Claire actually pressed herself back against the couch in a bid to try and get as far away as possible. "What if she'd tried to get down before you went to get her? What if she got hurt?" Fang pinned them with her gaze. "That high up she could have broken her arm if she fell – hell, she could have broken her neck." She swallowed thickly, tasting bile as the image of Diana, her head tilted at some unnatural angle filled her mind. "Did you two even think about that?"

Averia's lips trembled as she realised what could have gone wrong. "That's not what we wanted, mommy! I just… I just wanted her to stop being so annoying for a while. We really were going back to get her and nothing bad happened, anyway." She stuck her chin out and glared back at Fang defiantly.

Fang's eyes widened in disbelief and for one sickening moment she thought she might actually reach out and slap Averia across the face. Some of that desire must have shown in her eyes, because Averia jerked backward. "Nothing bad?" With a growl she knelt down so that she and Averia were eye to eye. The girl flinched away, but Fang held her still. "Nothing bad? She was scared out of her wits, Averia. She was crying her eyes out. You know, Averia, you know how scary it can be to be trapped somewhere and you still left her there." She forced herself to let go of Averia before her grip became hard enough to bruise. "But you know what the sad thing is, Averia? After I got her out of the tree, she was worried about you, worried that you and Claire were going to get into trouble. Well, damn it, you are in trouble, both of you!"

Averia looked down, nearly in tears. "It's not fair! Why are we the only ones getting into trouble? Diana didn't have to follow us up the tree."

Fang jaw clenched. Claire, smart girl, had chosen to stay quiet, but Averia just kept right on digging a hole for herself. "You're right, she did break the rules, but what you did was far worse. She's your sister, Averia, and you do not leave your sister behind. It doesn't matter if she's being annoying or bratty, if she is, then come tell me, but you do not, under any circumstances, leave your sister behind like that." Fang's voice had risen to almost a shout. "Do you understand me?"

Tears trickled down Averia's face and she nodded slowly. "I understand," she mumbled, and then more softly. "And I'm sorry too."

Fang sighed and sank onto the couch beside Averia. She covered her face with her hands and dragged in several deep breaths to try and calm herself. She hated everything about this, from the fact that she'd lost her temper and started yelling, to the fact that something like this had happened in the first place. And she hated that she'd scared Averia. She didn't ever want her children to be scared of her, no matter what they'd done.

"Look," Fang said softly. "I'm not the one you should be apologising to." She sighed. "Apologise to Diana later." Suddenly tired, she glanced over at Claire, who seemed unsure of whether to go and hug Averia or whether to make a run for it. "And I'll expect the same out of you, too, Claire, and I will be telling your parents about this, as well. You should have known better too."

Claire bit her lip. Clearly, the thought of her parents finding out about the way she'd acted was not a pleasant one. Serah would certainly have something to say, as would Snow. "Okay," she whispered softly. "Okay."

Fang looked at Averia out of the corner of her eye and then flopped back against the couch. "I just don't get it, you two. I know Diana can be annoying sometimes, but how could you two just leave her up there?"

Averia scrubbed at her cheeks. "It's just… it's just she's little, mommy, and she's not as fast as us, or as strong and… and sometimes I just want to go as high as I can go, as fast as I can, and only Claire can keep up."

Claire nodded slowly. "We just wanted to get to the top of the tree… we didn't… we didn't want her holding us back."

As much as Fang wanted to stay angry with them, she couldn't. Averia was her daughter and Claire was her niece. Besides, she could remember a time when she'd felt much the same about Vanille.

Back when they'd been growing up in Oerba, Vanille had always been littler than her, always slower and weaker, and as much as Fang had wanted nothing more than to look after her, there had been times when she'd felt angry toward her too. Because of Vanille, Fang hadn't been able to do whatever she wanted. Instead, she'd had to factor Vanille into all of her arrangements, from when she practiced, to when she went out to hunt. She hadn't wanted to feel that way – Vanille was family, the only family she'd had, at the time – but that hadn't stopped her from sometimes wondering what things might have been like if she didn't have to worry about anyone but herself.

But Fang had gotten over those feelings. After Vanille had patched her back together after a hunt went badly, Fang had been forced to accept that even though Vanille wasn't strong like her, there were other kinds of strength. Fang wanted Averia to see that, as well, to see that as annoying as her little sister could sometimes be, Diana balanced her in ways that she'd be grateful for when she was older.

"Still, you shouldn't have left her there," Fang said. "Besides, I don't think you two get it. Diana won't always be little and when she grows up, the three of you are going to need each other, but that won't ever work if this is how you treat each other."

"What do you mean?" Averia asked quietly. "I want to be like you and mom. You two don't need anyone."

Fang smiled sadly. It was nice that her daughter thought so highly of her, but she couldn't have been more wrong. "That's not true, and you know it. No one should ever have to stand alone, and no one that does is ever happy." She reached out and pulled Averia to her. The girl resisted for a moment and then let Fang pull her closer. "Just think about how your mom would be with your Aunt Serah? Would she be happy then? And how about if I wasn't around?" She looked at Claire. "And how about your parents, Claire? How would your mom feel if your Aunt Lightning wasn't around, or if your father wasn't there?"

Both girls remained silent, but Fang could see that what she was saying was beginning to sink in.

"Just because someone isn't as strong as you, or as fast, that doesn't mean that you should leave them behind." Fang paused. "Family shouldn't care about things like that."

"I'm really sorry," Averia said as she curled up into Fang's side and this time there was no doubt at all in Fang's mind that she really meant it. "Please don't hate me, mommy. I promise I'll be really good and look after Diana better and…"

"Don't be silly," Fang whispered. "I don't hate you. I'm your mother. I could never hate you. Sure, you can be annoying sometimes and a few minutes ago I could almost have strangled you, but I'll always love you, Averia." She grinned and pulled Claire over. "And you too, Claire."

The two girls giggled.

"But, really, when Diana is feeling better, I want you two to apologise to her and I don't ever want something like this to happen again," Fang said. Both girls nodded. "In the mean time, I'm going to tell you a story – the same story someone told me when I did something similar."

"You did?" Averia asked. At the age of ten, she was starting to realise that her parents weren't the invincible, perfect beings she'd always thought they were.

Fang nodded. "As a matter of fact, I did." She paused and debated whether or not she should tell them just what had happened with Vanille. Finally, she decided it would probably be for the best. The absolute last thing she wanted was for them to repeat her mistakes. "When your Aunt Vanille and I were younger, I always used to look out for her. I was stronger, you see, and faster, and a much better fighter. When I started learning how to fight properly, I think she got scared that I was going to leave her behind, that I was going to become a warrior and forget all about her. So, one day, she came along to where me, and some of the other warriors, were training and she demanded to join our training. The others all laughed and… and I laughed with them. I should have stuck up for her, but I didn't. Instead, I told her that she should stay in the village… that… that I'd look after her because she was weak." Fang chuckled softly. "I was a real idiot and not two weeks later it was Vanille who saved me. I'd been hurt during a hunt, really badly hurt, and if it wasn't for her I probably would have died." She smiled. "It took another two weeks before I could move around on my own, so in the end it wasn't her who was weak, it was me."

"I… I think I get it," Averia said slowly. "But… what about the story you were going to tell us?"

"Ah, yes." Fang leaned back on the couch. "Well, when I was lying there in bed waiting to get better for two weeks, Vanille told me a story, one that I'd heard before, but never really understood until then. It's called the story of the Three Arrows."

Fang felt a smile tug at her lips. Vanille hadn't told the story so much as yelled it at her, but that hadn't detracted one bit from how strangely fitting the story was for their situation. "Long ago, on Gran Pulse, there was a great chieftain. His clan ruled over a great deal of land and his people were strong and prosperous. Over time, the chieftain was blessed with three sons. The first son became a mighty swordsman, the second son became the famed archer, and the third son became a wonderful healer. However, the first son was three years older than the second son, and the second was, in turn, three years older than the third son.

"Because he was born first, the first son grew up headstrong and bold and he was certain that because he was the strongest son, he was also the best son. However, the second son grew up to be cunning wise and he became convinced that because he was the smartest that he was really the best son. And finally, the third son grew up gentle and kind, but he even so, he thought that he was really the best son too. Because the three sons were so different, they argued all the time and despite their father's best efforts, they could not get along at all.

"However, one day, a rival clan attacked and the great chieftain was badly wounded. He did not die, but he was too ill to continue leading their clan in a time of war. The first son took over his father's duties and led the clan to war against the rival clan. However, even though he was headstrong and bold, his strategies were faulty and so the rival clan was able to defeat him. After the first son, the second son also tried to lead the clan, but even though his strategies were well devised, he lacked the bravery to see them through. Finally, the third son tried, but even though he was a great healer who had saved many lives during the previous battles, he was not suited to war, and so he failed, as well." Fang looked at Claire and Averia. "Do you know what happened next?"

Averia shook her head. "Was their clan destroyed by the rival clan?"

"No." Fang smiled. "When the chieftain saw how badly all three of his sons had done, he called them to him. Though he was still weak, he asked his oldest son to fetch him his bow and arrows. Then the chieftain took three arrows from his quiver and handed one to each of his sons. He asked them to break the arrows. Naturally, all three sons were able to snap the arrows. However, the chieftain then took three arrows and bundled them together. He asked his third son to try and break the three arrows that had been bundled together, but he could not do it. Nor could the second son break the arrows, and even the first son could not break the arrows." Fang searched the girls' eyes. "Do you understand what the chieftain was trying to tell his sons?"

Averia and Claire shook their heads. "No."

"Well, neither did the three sons." Fang sighed softly. "And neither did I until your Aunt Vanille told me." She chuckled. "The chieftain told his sons that each of them was like an arrow. Individually, a single arrow could be snapped easily and likewise, each of the three sons had been defeated. However, if they worked together then they would be like the three arrows bundled together, and no one would be able to defeat them. When they heard this, the three sons were ashamed, for they had not even considered working together. However, once they did start working together, the three sons were able to lead their clan to victory against their enemies." Fang paused as understanding dawned in Averia and Claire's eyes. "Averia, Claire… you two and Diana are like those three sons. Individually, you're all quite special, but together, you can be so much more." She grinned. "Just look at your mom and I were able to do with the rest of the l'Cie. Together, we were able to do so much more than we ever could have separately."

Averia said nothing for a long moment and then she hopped off the couch. "I'm going to go upstairs and see if Diana is okay." She paused. "I really do understand what you mean, mommy." She looked at Claire. "Come on, Claire."

"Good," Fang said. "Now, while you're off doing that, I'm going to go finish lunch."

X X X

Fang was fortunate that she hadn't had anything on the stove when she'd gone off to rescue to Diana, otherwise, the kitchen would definitely have been on fire by the time she got back. In any case, she felt too drained – physically and emotionally – to really whip up something special. Instead, she just settled for some toasted sandwiches and noodles. Not exactly the best lunch, but not too bad either. And it wasn't like the girls deserved a special treat. They might have learned their lesson, but they had broken the rules.

However, just as she was about to go call the girls in for lunch she heard more yelling coming from the front yard. Please, she thought, please let the girls not have made exactly the same mistake as before. She really didn't think she had it in her to yell again, and she wasn't sure if her heart could take having to deal with three distraught and angst-ridden girls.

What greeted her when she reached the front lawn was both very different and very similar to what had greeted her not too long ago. Diana was indeed up in the tree – at the very top, actually – but instead of being in tears, there was a big smile on her face. Seated next to her on that highest branch were Averia and Claire.

"Look how high we are, mommy!" Diana cried.

Averia grinned. "We finally got to the top."

Diana smirked. "It was really tough, and they had to help me, but then I helped them."

Claire nodded. "She was the only one small enough to climb up onto the top branch at first, then she helped pull us up."

Fang shook her head slowly. She wasn't sure whether she wanted to strangle the lot of them or hug them silly. They had, quite clearly, understood exactly what she wanted them to. However, they'd also, very clearly, broken the rules. Aw, never mind. She'd broken the rules plenty herself.

"That's awesome!" Fang yelled. "Now, don't move. I'm going to go get the camera so we can take a picture of this!"

However, she'd gotten all of two steps before a horrified cry stopped her in her tracks.

"Fang!" Lightning cried as she stepped onto the front lawn. "What are the children doing up that high?"

Fang slowly turned. "You see, there's actually a good explanation for that…" she trailed off.

"Well?" Lightning asked.

Fang looked up at the children in the tree. The children in the tree looked back her. Then all four of them looked at the not particularly pleased expression on Lightning's face. In the face of Lightning's displeasure, the girls did exactly what Fang had hoped they would do. They stuck together.

"It was her idea!" they shouted, all pointing at Fang.

X X X

**Author's Notes**

As always, I do not own Final Fantasy, nor am I making any money off of this.

Wow, quick update, huh? I wasn't sure at first whether to file this under "Tell Me A Story" or "Ordinary Heroes". In the end, I decided to put it in "Tell Me A Story" even though there isn't actually a story in it that involves FF characters put into popular fairytales or the like. However, a story is central to this chapter, and that I think, makes it okay to put this chapter in "Tell Me A Story". It also helps, of course, that both "Tell Me A Story" and Ordinary Heroes" share the same continuity.

The story at the centre of this chapter is based on the incident known as the "Lesson of Three Arrows" in which the real historical figure Mori Motonari sought to educate his sons of the importance of staying united. Whether or not the incident really occurred is a matter of some debate, but the tale continues to be quite popular for the lesson that it teaches.

I would also like to address some of the questions that people may have regarding the behaviour of Averia and Claire in this chapter. I do not think that they were being deliberately malicious. Indeed, their behaviour is something that you see all the time in children. Children argue all the time and tactics, like exclusion or abandonment are widespread. The issue really is that children (even very bright ones) are often not very good at understanding the long-term consequences of their behaviour. In fact, many struggle just to see how things _could_ have turned out and will argue that so long as nothing bad actually happens then everything is fine. Children need to learn that behaviour has consequences and that just because people are different doesn't necessarily make them bad, although obviously there are exceptions (e.g., being a psychopath is generally not okay). Teaching children these sorts of things is one of the most important roles that parents have and it's not always easy, especially when misbehaviour can also make parents very angry. Indeed, my parents didn't exactly have a cakewalk when it came to my twin sister and I. On one occasion, our mother locked us outside the house and told us not to come in until we were done arguing. We were out there for more than an hour. Needless to say, we now get along every well. We even have freaky twin powers.

As for why this update is coming so quickly… blame insomnia. I like writing and when I can't sleep, I end up using that time to write. This chapter is also slightly shorter perhaps than the previous chapters. However, I don't believe in padding the chapter out just to get the word count up and I like the way it reads, so this is how it's going to stay.

As always, I appreciate feedback. Reviews and comments are welcome.


	5. Chapter 5

**Princess Grumpy Guts, or the Princess Who Lost Her Smile**

"Are you sure that you'll be fine?"

Hope did his best not to sigh at Lightning as she gave him a look that was halfway between concerned and pitying. The look was only made more incongruous by the fact that, as she so often did, Diana had decided to cling onto Lightning like some kind of monkey.

"I'll be fine." He reached over to pull Diana off her mother only for the girl to take a flying leap at him. He swayed dangerously for a moment and then found his footing again, a little less comfortable now that he had Diana on his back. "See, that wasn't so hard." Naturally, Diana chose that exact moment to start climbing again. Only a quick shift of his head kept him from getting a poke in the eye as the girl settled into her new position on top of his shoulders.

Lightning took one look at her daughter and the man that she considered a younger brother and gave Hope a look that could charitably have been described as sceptical. "Are you sure?"

"Yes, I'm sure." Hope smiled in what he hoped was a reassuring way. "Besides, I've looked after the girls before and things have always gone fine."

"I'm not sure that I would agree." Lightning's lips twitched as Diana used both of her hands to give Hope a crude set of antennae. "Remember what happened the first time you looked after the girls?"

Hope winced. The first time he'd looked after the girls, Diana had just started walking and Averia was in that wonderful stage where she asked questions about anything and everything. After spending the better part of three hours answering question after question, he'd gone to make the girls lunch only to walk straight into a trap that Averia had prepared earlier. Dangling upside down from a rope around his ankles, his thoughts were centred on two things: what exactly was Fang teaching Averia, and how could someone so young have the manual dexterity to put together such a good trap? Needless to say, he done his best to keep being caught in Averia's trap a secret, but that plan had fallen through when the girl had, quite seriously, reported the results of her practice to Fang.

Lightning had been utterly mortified. Fang, however, had given Averia a cookie for her trouble.

"Look, that happened a long time ago. I know what I'm up against now, and the girls are much better behaved." Hope breathed a sigh of relief as Diana decided that she'd had enough of using him as a tree and hopped back onto the ground. "And don't forget, I've got Vanille here with me too."

Hearing her name, the red haired woman gave both of them a lazy wave from the living room couch. With a happy cry, Diana headed over to Vanille and Hope felt a shiver crawl down his spine as they began to whisper avidly to each other. They were planning something, he was sure of it, and from the mirth in Vanille's eyes as she looked at him, it was probably a prank, and it was probably headed his way.

Lightning followed his gaze and a small smile crossed her lips. "Are you really sure that having Vanille around is a good thing?"

"Not any more." Hope glanced behind Lightning to where Fang was standing. The green-eyed woman met his gaze and gestured for him to hurry things along. "Look, whatever happens, I'll manage. Remember, this is supposed to be a chance for you and Fang to go out and do something with Serah and Snow." Behind Lightning, Fang gave him the thumb's up and he had to stop himself from rolling his eyes. Honestly, Fang could be such a kid sometimes.

"I know that." Lightning scowled. "But I just want to make sure that everything is all right before we go." Her scowl deepened. "I still can't believe we have to see that new romantic comedy." She made a disgusted sound. "There has to be something better on."

Hope did his best not to smile. Lightning's distaste for overly dramatic displays of emotion was well known, and it applied even more to movies than it did to real life. Unfortunately for Lightning, when the topic of just what the two married couples should do for the night came up, Serah had very quickly suggested that they catch the latest romantic comedy at the movies. Snow had taken all of five seconds to agree – he might not have been a big fan of romantic comedies, but he was putty in Serah's hands. Fang hadn't minded all that much, and Lightning, well, Serah had pulled that puppy dog look of hers and the normally stoic woman had folded like a paper bag. If he hadn't been under her direct command in the Guardian Corps, Hope would probably have made fun of her for it. As it was, he preferred to spend his afternoons doing paper work, as opposed to cleaning toilets.

"It's not going to be that bad," Hope said. "And they did say that you could pick which restaurant you'll be eating dinner at afterwards."

"I suppose it's not too bad." Lightning gave Fang an exasperated look as the woman glanced at her non-existent watch. "But if I had my way…"

"You and Fang would be spending the whole day in bed," Vanille shouted from the couch. "Now, stop worrying and go. Hope and I managed to make it through our journey, your kids aren't going to be the end of us." She chuckled as Diana gave her an offended look. "Okay, maybe Averia and Claire won't be, but Diana might give us a little trouble." Beside Vanille, Diana gave a firm nod. "Now, shoo, go on, shoo."

Lightning's eyes narrowed but Vanille just grinned back. Normally, she wouldn't be quite so cheeky with the pink haired woman, but with Fang there, she knew that she was safe.

"Fine," Lighting said. "We'll be back later, okay. It's the weekend tomorrow and they've been good this week, so it's okay if they stay up a little. But remember, no sugar after dinner. If you feed them any, they'll be up all night, and it will be up to you to deal with them."

Hope chuckled. "Trust me, if there's one thing I've learned, it's that kids and sugar don't mix. Now, get going."

Draping one arm around Lightning's middle and pulling her toward the door before she could come up with anything else to say, Fang took the time to shoot a quick grin over her shoulder. "Enjoy your night boys and girls, and Diana, remember to behave. Tell that to your sister too, and Claire." She smirked teasingly at Hope. "And don't even think of putting the moves on Vanille."

Hope laughed nervously. "I wouldn't dream of it."

Vanille grinned over at the two of them from the couch. "Stop teasing him, Fang."

"Ah, but it's so much fun, especially since I can't tease old sour puss here too much without getting banished to the couch." Fang gave Lightning a kiss on the cheek.

Lightning gave Fang a wry look. "Keep pushing your luck, Fang, and you could still end up on the couch."

Laughing, Fang tugged Lightning out of the living room and toward the front door. Once he had heard the front door open and shut, Hope sagged onto the couch beside Vanille and Diana with a sigh. Fang's last bit of teasing had struck a little too close to home, only she'd been wrong about one thing. He hadn't been the one to put the moves on Vanille – the red head had been the one to go after him.

In retrospect, it wasn't all that strange. They'd always gotten along quite well, and he'd have to be blind not to notice how pretty she was, but for the most part they'd been just friends – close friends, certainly, but nothing more. However, a few months ago, Vanille had decided that being just friends wasn't enough. He wasn't entirely sure what had prompted the change in attitude, but he was more than happy the results. Vanille was the kind of woman that any man would be happy to be with, and when she'd ambushed him on his way home from work, he'd put up a fight for all of five seconds before letting her having her wicked – very wicked – way with him. He grinned. Best day ever.

And things had gone on in that vein for the last few months with the two of them spending as much time with each other as they could. Vanille had even started to move some of her things into his apartment, and more than once, he'd caught himself smiling a little stupidly when he saw one of her shirts next to his. But they were getting to the stage now where he was starting to think about what would happen next, and frankly, there was something about taking their relationship to the next level that terrified him.

Oh, it wasn't the idea of committing permanently to someone that bothered him. In fact, he was finding it harder and harder to imagine what his life would be like without Vanille in it. No, what terrified him was the fact that at some point, probably very soon, he would have to tell Fang that he had been seeing – and sleeping with – Vanille. He could see it right now. Vanille would be there with him, and while the red haired woman was in the room, Fang would smile and congratulate him and tell him just how happy she was for them. And then she'd ask Vanille to get them some water, and the moment the other woman was out of the room, she'd gut him and probably feed his body to Bahamut. If he was lucky, Lightning might be around to stop her, but given that Lightning had come to see Vanille as another little sister, she might just join Fang in the whole murder thing. Either that, or they'd castrate him.

He might have gotten a lot stronger over the years, but against both Fang and Lightning? Well, there was strong, and then there was just plain suicidal. At best, he'd last a few minutes before they turned him into a pile of twitching, thoroughly beaten goo. After all, look what Lightning had done to Snow while he'd been courting Serah. It was a miracle that Snow hadn't developed brain damage from all the blows to the head he'd received.

"Is something wrong, Hope?" Vanille asked sweetly as she leaned over to give him a pat on the arm. Besides her, Diana gave Hope a suspicious look as her gaze went from Vanille's hand to Hope's arm and back again. "Well?"

Hope stifled the urge to scowl – a habit that he had picked up from years of working with Lightning. Vanille knew exactly what was on his mind, but rather than sympathise, she'd found the entire thing utterly hilarious. Of course she would, she wasn't the one facing potential death. To his horror – and secret delight – she'd started to leave increasingly unsubtle hints as to their relationship. For instance, she'd started touching him more in front of the others, a little squeeze of the hand here, an overly long hug there, but so far none of the others had caught on. Hope pursed his lips. Maybe Sazh had, but if he had, the older man seemed content to let things play out. Still, it was only a matter of time before the others worked out that something was going on, especially since Vanille's latest ploy had been to start sitting in his lap whenever she got the chance.

"I'm just thinking," Hope said. "You know, about stuff."

"Stuff?" Vanille chuckled softly and scooted across the couch so that their sides were touching. "You really shouldn't worry so much. It's not like she's going to kill you."

Diana visibly perked up at the mention of killing and looked between Vanille and Hope. "Who's going to try and kill Uncle Hope?" She gave Hope a wide smile. "Whoever they are, they'd lose, because you're really strong." She paused and frowned. "Unless it's my mom or my mommy… then you're dead. They're really good at killing stuff."

Hope chuckled nervously. "Trust me, Diana, I know how good your parents are at killing stuff." He gave Vanille a weak smile. "And I'm not saying that she'll kill me. Maybe she'll just maim me."

Vanille rolled her eyes. "Stop being so dramatic. You're practically family already." She glanced over at Diana. "The girls even call you Uncle Hope."

"That's because he is," Diana said. "He's not old like Grandpa Sazh, so he has to be Uncle Hope." She reached for the remote control. "Can we watch something?"

Vanille handed Diana the remote. "Sure, but don't you have homework to do? You should probably do that now so you don't have to do it on the weekend."

Diana gleefully accepted the remote and flipped from channel to channel until she found one with what looked to be a nature documentary showing. "I don't have any. My class worked really hard all week so Miss Gainsborough said we didn't have to do any over the weekend."

"Really?" Vanille had met Aerith Gainsborough several times, and had quickly come to the conclusion that the woman was made of stern stuff indeed, given her ability to deal with so many small children day in and day out.

"Really, really." Diana tilted her head to one side as on the television a large bird swooped into the water to retrieve a fish that was almost as large as it was. "You can even call my mom. She checked with Miss Gainsborough just to be sure."

"Lucky you then." Vanille winced as the bird with the fish was almost robbed of its catch by a bigger, stronger bird. "It should be okay if we watch for a while then. I've already got dinner in the oven, but it will be a little bit longer before it's done."

Diana nodded. "Aunt Vanille, do you think we could go fishing next time you're with us?"

Vanille smiled. "Sure, but you might not like it. Sometimes, you're there all day and you hardly catch a thing."

Diana eye's widened as more of the birds dove into the water to catch fish. "If we don't catch any fish the normal way, we could always dive in and catch some." She pointed at the television. "Like that. Splash! I bet we'd catch lots of them if we did that."

"Probably not," Vanille replied. "And your parents wouldn't be pleased if you came back all wet." She smirked. "And normally, if we were going to get into the water to catch fish, we'd use a spear."

"No!" Diana wailed. "Don't spear the fish, that's mean!"

Beside Vanille, Hope bit back a laugh. It was just like Diana to find spearing the fish wrong, but diving into the water after them right. Knowing the girl, however, she'd probably throw back any fish she caught unless she absolutely needed to eat them. She had a soft spot for animals, one that had seen her bring more than the occasional injured animal home to be looked after. Lightning always complained when that happened, but to the best of Hope's knowledge, she'd never actually told Diana to stop doing it.

As the show went on, Hope spent half of his time watching the television, and the other half watching the two other people on the couch. Maybe it was a sign that he really was ready to settle down, but lately he'd begun to think about what it would be like to have kids. Sure, he didn't want any right now, but in a few years, he could definitely see himself being ready. Watching Vanille talking with Diana as they watched the show made him wonder what it would be like if they had kids. She would definitely be a good mother, and he'd do his best to be a good father. He shuddered. But then again, if he got Vanille pregnant, then Fang would definitely want to kill him. And unlike Snow, his Eidolon was not going to help him outrun anything or anyone.

"All right," Hope said as he stood and stretched. "I think I'm going to leave you two here to watch. I'll go into the dining room and check on Claire and Averia. They're doing their homework now, so they might need a little help."

"Okay, Uncle Hope." Diana grinned as Vanille moved over and gave her half the couch. "Look, more couch for me!" She flopped happily onto her newly acquired portion of the couch and then shifted to use Vanille's leg as a pillow.

Hope gave Diana a teasing look. "You're looking very lazy there, Diana."

Diana smirked. "It's a weekend tomorrow. I have to be lazy."

"Is that so?" Diana nodded and Hope gave her a pat on the head. "Then by all means, be as lazy as possible." He turned to leave, but Vanille tugged him in to press a quick kiss against his cheek. "Vanille…" He liked the show of affection, but the intense look of curiosity on Diana's face made him more than a little uneasy. Somehow, he had a feeling that Fang might be hearing about this.

Leaving Vanille and Diana to watch their show, Hope headed into the dining room and quietly took a seat at the table. The newspaper was still there and he opened it up and began to read. As a member of the Guardian Corps, it paid to know what was going on, and it would give him something to do while Claire and Averia worked. On the other side of the table, the two girls looked up just long enough to nod in his direction before they returned to their homework. He smiled. No doubt, both of them wanted to get their homework done as quickly as possible so that they could move onto other, more interesting things.

A few minutes passed in near silence before he felt a tug on his arm.

"Uncle Hope can you help me with this?" Claire asked as she pushed her notebook across the table to him.

Hope took the notebook and breathed a sigh of relief as he realised that the girl's homework was something that he could help her with. The topic seemed to be civics, and there were a few questions about the modern political system. It was fairly dry stuff, but given his own position, and that of his father, it was something that he knew quite a lot about.

"Sure," Hope said. "Now, how about I explain it to you? It's a little tricky, so if you've got any questions, just ask." As he explained things to Claire, he slanted a wry look in Averia's direction. The two girls were in the same class, so they probably had the same homework, but Averia was someone who hated to ask for help. Nevertheless, she listened just as closely as Claire to his explanation.

Once he'd finished helping the girls with their civics, Hope was ready to go back to reading the newspaper when Averia asked him a question that, quite frankly, he did not expect. It was also the kind of question he had sincerely hoped that he would never have to answer.

"Uncle Hope, what does it mean when two people are special friends?" Averia asked.

Hope felt himself wince and immediately schooled his features into a more neutral expression. Averia looked very serious indeed, and she could almost have been a younger Lightning, her gaze was that intense. "What do you mean, Averia? Where did you hear that?"

Averia shrugged. "I was talking to some of the other girls in my class. One of them has an older sister and she said that her older sister and this boy she knew had become special friends. What does that mean?"

Hope looked around frantically. From the living room, he could hear the sounds of explosions and cackling – clearly Vanille and Averia had changed to the channel – and he quickly realised that he was on his own. But how should he deal with this? He would need to tread lightly. "How old is your classmate's sister?" Please Maker, he thought, don't let her be old enough for special friends to mean what he thought it meant.

Averia frowned faintly. "I don't know exactly, but her older sister is a lot older. I think she's nineteen or twenty." She paused. "I saw her once. She was really pretty."

Claire nodded. "It was funny. She came to school because our classmate's parents couldn't pick her up, and all the boys were staring at her. They looked kind of dumb."

Hope mentally cursed. He had a pretty good idea of what kind of special friends the girl and her boyfriend were. "Well, um, sometimes…" He stifled the urge to scream. Wasn't this something Lightning should have to deal with? He took a deep breath. "Okay. You know how you all have friends?" Claire and Averia nodded. "Well, there are different kinds of friends."

Averia nodded and Hope thought he was off the hook until she spoke. "Like what?"

Hope sighed. "Well, you and Claire are friends, right?" Averia looked at Claire and then nodded firmly. "And you're friends with that girl, Yuna, right?" Averia nodded again. "But are you the same kind of friend with her as you are with Claire?"

Averia's brows furrowed. "Yuna's a really, really good friend." She didn't seem to like the implication that Yuna wasn't as much of a friend as Claire was.

"I'm not say she isn't," Hope said. "But Claire's different isn't she?" Hope bit back a smile as Averia flinched away from Claire. The other girl had just turned her extraordinarily blue eyes on Averia, and Averia seemed temporarily struck speechless. Yes, she was definitely like Lightning when it came to emotional eloquence. "Well?"

"I guess…" Averia looked away from Claire as she struggled to find the right words. "Yuna is my really, really good friend, but Claire is… she's like my sister, even though she's just my cousin."

Claire's smile was almost blinding. Apparently, that had been the right answer.

"Well, being special friends is a bit similar. Special friends are a different kinds of friends from normal friends." Hope gave himself a mental pat on the back. Mission accomplished…

"But how is it different?"

Or not…

Hope closed his eyes. Most of the time he was glad that Averia was a quick and inquisitive mind. However, now was not one of those times. "Okay… well, you know how sometimes grownups love each other?" Averia frowned faintly, but nodded. "Well, they don't love each other the same way that kids love each other, do they?"

"I think I understand." Averia paused. "My mommy used to say that she was friends with all of you, but it was a bit different with my mom. She said that my mom was special."

Claire nodded quickly. "My daddy said the same thing. He said that my mommy was special right from the start, that even if he'd known Aunt Lebreau and the others longer, my mommy was different, like he'd known her forever and ever."

Hope seized his chance. "That's right. See, sometimes, when two adults really love each other, they become special friends. See, they're friends, but also a different kind of friends, since they want to spend their lives with each other and other things like that." He winced at his slip of the tongue. Hopefully, the girls wouldn't ask what 'other things like that' meant. That was one conversation that belonged firmly to Lightning and Fang.

"Oh, okay." Averia seemed satisfied with his explanation, but before he could relax, she turned to Claire. "They were also another kind of friends, weren't they?"

Claire pursed her lips and then nodded quickly. "That's right. That girl in our class said that she once heard her sister say that she and that boy were friends with benefits." She looked earnestly at Hope. "What are friend with benefits? Does he give her stuff or something?"

Dear Maker. Hope took a deep breath and then fell back on his tried and true response to awkward questions from the girls. "Ask your parents."

"But why?" Claire asked. "Can't you tell us? You know about lots of things, Uncle Hope. My daddy says you're really smart and everything, otherwise Aunt Lightning wouldn't let you help her out so much at the Guardian Corps."

Hope smiled at Claire. It was endearing how much she trusted her father, although in this case Snow was right. When it came to the Guardian Corps, Lightning gave her best, but in return, she expected every single soldier under her command to give their best too. "Look, this really is something that you should talk about with your parents, okay?"

The girls sighed, but seemed to agree.

"I hope we didn't make you angry, Uncle Hope," Claire said softly.

"No, I'm not angry." Hope grinned. "It's just really something you should talk about with your parents. You'll understand when you're older."

Averia looked thoughtful for a moment. "Uncle Hope, do you have any friends with benefits?"

That was it. Hope stood. "Oh, look at the time. I think I might go check on dinner."

X X X

Vanille grinned and shifted slightly to better accommodate Diana. Over the past few minutes, the girl had stealthily crept from her side of the couch into Vanille's lap. Not that Vanille could really complain. She'd done the same to Fang quite often when they were younger. In fact, it was something she still did, albeit less often now that Fang was married. Had anyone else tried it, Vanille was quite sure that Lightning would not have tolerated it, but the pink haired woman understood how close she and Fang were.

Moving her eyes from the television, Vanille glanced down at Diana. Apart from her bright blue eyes, the girl really did look like a miniature Fang and it was sometimes a real struggle to not just scoop her up and hug her to bits. Vanille smiled softly and ran one hand through Diana's hair. The girl glanced up at her and then relaxed, leaning just a little into Vanille's touch.

"You know," Vanille said. "Your hair is just like your mommy's."

Diana smiled sunnily. "I know, my mom always says that." She made a face. "But I wish I had pink hair instead. I think I'd look really cool with pink hair."

Vanille chuckled. "I think so too, but you really do look nice with the hair you have now." She gave Diana a poke on the nose. "And don't you think your mommy would be sad if she knew you didn't like having the same hair as her?"

"I suppose." Diana grabbed at Vanille's hand. "But maybe I could have half and half."

"Half and half?" Vanille made a face. "I'm not sure that would be a good idea." She smiled. "Anyway, you're fine just the way you are."

"I'm better than fine." Diana smirked. "I'm awesome."

"Indeed you are." Vanille looked up as an explosion filled the television. Immediately, Diana's attention was once more drawn to the unfolding battle, a duel between two rather ridiculous looking robots.

It was funny how things changed, Vanille thought. Just a few months ago, she and Hope had just been friends and now, well, they were much more than friends. It wasn't that she hadn't seen him as a man. Lightning might have taken some time to see him as something other than the boy from their journey, but Vanille had never had that problem. However, it had taken her a while to see him not only as a man, but as a man she might be interested in.

She felt a wistful smile slip across her lips. Over the years, Hope had become quite handsome, and she knew that he'd received more than his fair share of female attention. But what had eventually attracted her to him were more than just his looks. Hope was that rarest of things – a good and decent person, the kind of person that she could trust totally and absolutely with anything and everything. He would never ever betray her, and never ever let her down. And seeing him in action with the girls, it was clear to her that not only was he starting to think of settling down, he would also make quite a father too.

Once Vanille had realised that she wanted him, she'd taken steps to secure her claim, so to speak. If there was one thing that she'd learned over the years, it was that life was simply too short to sit back and wait for things to work out on their own. To her delight, Hope hadn't put up much resistance at all, and she'd been very, very pleasantly surprised to find that although he could often come across as shy with women, he most certainly knew how to handle himself in romantic situations.

Still, there was one thing she didn't like about their relationship. Keeping the whole thing secret had been fun for a while. But they'd reached the point where she didn't want to hide things anymore. She wanted to be able to cuddle up to him and be with him without worrying what anyone else might think. However, when she'd brought the topic up, Hope had been a little less than enthusiastic about telling everyone else.

He wasn't ashamed of her – far from it. However, he was scared of Fang, and frankly, she couldn't blame him. Sure, Fang liked to make fun of Lightning for being overprotective, but all Lightning had ever done was knock Snow around a little. Fang had actually speared one of Vanille's more zealous suitors back when they'd been younger. Of course, she hadn't actually killed the poor fellow, but getting speared had put a quick end to the young man's romantic inclinations toward Vanille.

Vanille sighed. She loved Fang, she really did, but it was about time that the older woman realised that she wasn't a little girl anymore. She was a grown woman, and damn it, if she wanted to be with someone then she would be. Not that she'd ever say that to Fang. Fang wasn't one to back down from a challenge, and if Vanille tried to push her, then she knew that Fang would push back. The only person that Vanille had told about her and Hope was Serah. The younger Farron had known exactly how she'd felt and after the initial bout of giggling and gossiping, Serah had offered some very blunt advice: tell Fang and pray to Etro that things worked out. After all, Serah had said, it had worked for her and Snow. Vanille had been sorely, sorely tempted to point out all the flaws with that little argument.

"Aunt Vanille, how come you don't have kids?" Diana asked.

Vanille blinked and looked back at the screen. At some point during all her thinking, the show had finished and the credits had begun to roll. "Why don't I have kids?" She pursed her lips. "Well, it's not because I wouldn't like to have some, but you know, I'd really like to have someone to have them with."

Diana nodded sagely. "Like how my mommy and mom have each other."

"Yes, that's right." Vanille gave Diana a hug. Honestly, it was almost criminal how huggable the girl was. She was like a miniature Fang teddy bear. Diana giggled and squirmed. "But finding someone like that isn't easy you know. You have to really love and trust them, and sometimes people go their whole lives without finding the right person."

Diana's expression turned serious. "That sounds sad. Everybody should have somebody who really, really loves them." She grinned. "Maybe you should ask my mommy to look for someone for you. She's really good at finding things. Like this one time, I lost one of my shoes and I was running late for school and then I asked my mommy and she found it right away." She lowered her voice conspiratorially. "I think she might be able to see through things."

Vanille laughed. "No, your mommy can't see through things, but you're right, she is good at finding things. Still, I'm not sure that your mommy would help me find someone to be with for always and always."

"Why? She likes you, so why wouldn't she help you?" Diana tugged Vanille's arm. "You're her sister, aren't you? So she just has to help you."

Vanille grinned. Diana was a clever child, but she was still just a child, and with that came a certain level of naivety. "It's a little tricky to explain, but sometimes, when you love someone very, very much, it can be hard to let them go, even if you're not really letting go of them at all."

Diana made a face. "That doesn't make sense at all. Make more sense, Aunt Vanille."

"Think about your Uncle Snow," Vanille said. "You probably already know this, but when your mom first heard that he was in love with your Aunt Serah, she wasn't very happy."

"Yeah, she punched him really good!" Diana emphasised her words with a wild punch at the air. "But then they became friends and everything worked out."

Vanille snickered. What Diana had just said was a massive oversimplification, but she could work with it. "Yes, at first your mom was worried that your Uncle Snow would take your Aunt Serah away. You see, for a long time, it was just your mom and Aunt Serah, so your mom was worried about losing the only family she had." Vanille paused to give the words time to sink in. "Even though your mommy has you and your sister, your mom, and everyone else, for a long time, it was just me and her, and so she's worried that someday, someone might come and take me away."

Diana nodded. "I would be really sad if you went away. You're really cool, way cooler than some of the aunts that some people in my class have. They're old and mean, and never want to play." She tilted her head to one side. "But maybe you could just be with Uncle Hope. He's really nice and he wouldn't take you away, and I know that mommy and mom like him a lot. And you like him a lot too, don't you?"

Vanille almost wanted to laugh. It was all so simple when Diana put it like that. Before she could reply, however, a loud ding came from the kitchen. "Oh, it sounds like dinner is ready. I should probably go and get it out of the oven."

Diana cheered. "Dinner!" She gave Vanille a hopeful look. "Carry me to the kitchen?"

Vanille pretended to think very hard. "Okay, but only halfway. Then you have to carry me, otherwise it won't be fair."

Diana nodded like it made perfect sense. "That sounds fair."

X X X

Hope looked up from the oven as the sounds of struggling reached him. Since Vanille had put dinner together, the least that he could do was take it out of the oven. It was some old Oerban recipe, one that he didn't know the name of, but it looked wonderful and smelled even better. As he turned the oven off, the sounds of struggling grew louder. Quickly, he ducked back into the dining room to see what all the commotion was.

He had to bite back a laugh. Diana was doing her best to drag Vanille across the floor into the kitchen, but the discrepancy in size meant that it was all she could do just to hold the red haired woman up. Despite the absurdity of the situation, or perhaps because of it, both Vanille and Diana had big grins on their faces.

"What are you two doing?" Hope asked. At the dinner table, both Claire and Averia were watching the scene unfold with a mixture of curiosity and amusement. "Well?"

Diana huffed and moved Vanille another inch or two. "We made a deal. Aunt Vanille carried me halfway here, so now I have to carry her the other half. That way it's fair." She braced her feet against the ground and pulled with all her might. "But she's too heavy. I can't carry her."

"Well, you are kind of little," Averia said. Beside her, Claire nodded.

"I am not little!" Diana retorted despite the fact that she was, in all honesty, quite little compared to Vanille.

Vanille gave Hope a teasing smile. "Mind giving Diana a little help?"

Hope paused, well aware of the fact that they had an audience, but then Vanille gave him that look – that look which made him feel ten feet tall and strong enough to take on anything in the world. He grinned. "Fine." He strode over to Vanille and scooped her up in his arms. He could still remember what it was like to be shorter than her, but he'd been taller than her for quite a while now. She gave him a sweet smile and if they had been alone, he would have stolen a kiss.

"My hero," Vanille cried theatrically, kicking her legs a little.

Diana giggled. "Wow, Aunt Vanille, you really should get Uncle Hope to be with you!"

Hope tripped over his own feet, but he somehow managed to twist so that he took the brunt of the fall. Sprawled on top of him, Vanille wiggled just so. "What a good friend you are." She winked. "A special friend."

Hope felt a bead of sweat roll down his temple as both Claire and Averia turned sharp looks at him. Somehow, he got the feeling that he'd been in for a fresh round of questioning about what it meant to be special friends with someone.

X X X

Dinner was an interesting affair. For a while the girls seemed content to focus mostly on eating, but it wasn't long before an argument broke out. The subject? Which was better, milk and cookies or cheese and crackers? Exactly how it had come up, Vanille wasn't the least bit sure, but the battlelines were quickly established. Diana and Averia were firmly on the cookies and milk side, most likely because of the sugar, but Hope and Claire had taken an equally entrenched position in favour of cheese and crackers.

"Come on, Aunt Vanille, you have to choose our side." Diana gave Vanille a pleading look. "Cookies have sugar in them, that makes them way better than cheese and crackers."

"Sugar doesn't make things better," Claire countered. "And cheese and crackers taste much nicer. You can use all different kinds of cheese and there are lots of different kinds of crackers. It's like eating something new every time."

"But there are different kinds of cookies," Averia replied.

"Maybe, but there aren't that many kinds of milk," Claire shot back with a triumphant grin. "So that means that cheese and crackers must be better."

"Well, I think they're both good," Vanille said. She wasn't about to pick sides over something like this. "So I'll vote for both of them, which makes it a tie."

Neither side seemed particularly happy, but the argument was quickly forgotten as Averia and Claire rounded on Hope with more questions about what it meant to be special friends with someone. Rather than say anything, Vanille was content to watch the blonde man squirm. It was kind of endearing him watching him try to explain it without getting into the specifics, especially the part where he tried to steer the conversation away from her earlier comments.

Finally, dinner came to an end and the five of them trooped back into the living room. A quick flick through all of the channels revealed that, as usual, the quality of late night television left a lot to be desired.

"What can we do," Diana whined. "I'm not sleepy yet."

Averia glanced around hopefully. "We could play a video game…"

Vanille laughed. "I don't think so. I remember watching you play with your parents and your Uncle Snow. I do not want to end up like them." It had taken Snow several days to get over the trauma of having Claire repeatedly kill him, and personally, Vanille did not want to play a video game where she was likely to be killed by a giant hovering hamster with flamethrowers for eyes. "Any other ideas?"

Claire nodded. "I have an idea. The last time there was a fair in town, my daddy took me and we saw a puppet show. It was really interesting. We could do something like that."

Diana's eyes lit up. "I remember those." Her expression fell. "But we don't have any puppets."

Claire winced. "No, we don't."

"We could try and make some," Averia said. "Although I'm not really sure how."

Vanille smirked. "Well, you just so happen to be in the presence of an expert." She looked at Hope. "Can you find some paper? We can put some puppets together and I have just the story in mind. If we work hard, I'm sure we can get everything done before their parents get back."

X X X

Fang slung one arm around Lightning and pressed her face into the other woman's hair. The movie had been the typical romantic comedy rubbish: amusing for the night, but not much else. Still, dinner had been very nice. As usual, Lightning's taste had been impeccable, and the four of them had spent most of dinner sharing parenting and work stories.

It had been eye opening to hear about just what Serah got up to as a teacher. Apparently, all of her students were aware of the adventures she'd had, and they had done their best to get her to show them what she could do. After a lot of deliberation, Serah had finally conceded and during one P. E. class, she had demonstrated that bows were definitely not outdated, at least, not in the right hands. However, the children's attempts to get Serah to summon her Eidolon were a little less successful. Using a bow was one thing, summoning an Eidolon was quite another. Wherever an Eidolon went, property damage tended to follow, and it would be hard to teach at the school if she reduced it to a crater.

However, the best part of the evening, had been watching Lightning relax. The pink haired woman was very, very good at hiding any sign of weakness, but Fang knew how tough the past few weeks had been for her. A spate of attacks along the frontier settlements had left the Guardian Corps scrambling for answers, and as was so often the case, they'd turned to Lightning to find them. The case had been solved just two days ago, and this was the first opportunity in a while for Lightning to just take it easy. Really, Fang thought, it was endearing how determined Lightning could be, but it could also be immensely frustrating to watch her work herself into the ground.

Opening the front door of their house, Fang stopped just shy of the living room.

"What's the hold up?" Snow asked.

Fang glanced back and then pointed at the ground. There were bits of coloured paper on the floor and a lot of giggling coming from the group of five people clustered around the coffee table in the middle of the living room. Well aware of Vanille's talent for pranks, Fang took a good look around before she stepped into the living room.

"So, what are you lot up to?" Fang asked.

"Mommy!" Diana shouted before she broke into a run and flung herself at Fang.

Fang caught her younger daughter easily, but had to take a few steps back as the girl's momentum threatened to bowl her over. "Good evening to you too. Now, what are you all doing?"

"We're going to do a puppet show," Diana said. She tugged Fang over to one of the chairs and then gestured for the others to sit down too. "Okay, okay, you have to sit down and watch, but no sitting on the couch. We're going to use that."

Fang gave Lightning an amused look. Whatever the girls and Vanille had come up with, it was bound to be interesting, and knowing Hope, he'd probably be dragged into it too. "All right, so, what now?"

Vanille grinned. "Just sit down. We'll be done in a second."

As the girls finished up, Snow pulled his chair over next to Fang. "Cardboard puppets?"

Fang nodded. "That's what it looks like. I remember Vanille used to like doing things like this when we were little."

"I see." Snow smiled at Serah. "It looks like we'll be seeing two shows tonight for the price of one."

Serah chuckled. "This one might be better than the movie."

"I thought you liked the movie." The words came from Lightning, who had turned to give her sister a suspicious look.

"It was okay." Serah shrugged and gave her sister a roguish smile. "It might have been a better idea to see that action movie instead."

The look that Lightning gave her sister was priceless. "Is that so?" Lightning ground out. "Next time, I pick the movie."

"No, next time we vote, just like always," Fang said. She glanced over to where the girls were putting the finishing touches on their puppets. Satisfied with their work, they moved to crouch behind the couch as Vanille took up a position just beside it. "I think they're about to start."

Snow put one finger up to his lips. "Shhh… no talking during the show."

Fang grinned but fell silent as Vanille coughed to gain their attention. "This show is proudly brought to you by our sponsors…"

"They have sponsors now?" Fang whispered.

"Quiet," Lightning growled.

Vanille gave Lightning a grateful look and continued. "As I was saying, this show is proudly brought to you by our sponsors… Gary the Gorgonopsid, everyone's favourite gorgonopsid." A quiet cheer that sounded suspiciously like Diana came from behind the couch. "The Averia Always Kills Plants Corporation…" A snicker came from Claire followed by what sounded an awful lot like someone getting whacked over the head. "And finally, the Claire Is Being Rude and Mean Company…" Vanille paused. "Dia-Estheim-Yun-Farron-Villiers Productions presents… Princess Grumpy Guts, or the Princess Who Lost Her Smile."

"Hey," Snow whispered, "Why is my name last?"

Lightning narrowed her eyes. "Just be glad they included it."

Vanille coughed again and gave them all a meaningful look. Finally satisfied that they wouldn't be talking, she continued, her voice lowered a little to take on a stronger, more epic quality.

"Our story takes place a long, long time ago, in a kingdom far, far away." She nudged Hope with her foot and a cardboard cut out of a castle and some houses popped up from behind the couch. "In this kingdom there was a beautiful princess." A cardboard puppet appeared, one with pink crepe paper for hair and two bright blue button eyes.

Fang snickered as Lightning gaped. She had a feeling she was going to like this.

"The princess's name was Princess Thunder," Vanille said. "And she was known for being very beautiful." The puppet of the princess waved about theatrically. "However, the princess was not only fair of face, but strong of arm." There was a crunch as the puppet of the princess gave one of the cardboard buildings a mighty whack and broke it in half.

Fang leaned toward Lightning. "Wow, that sounds just like a certain somebody I happen to know."

Lightning glared. "It's probably just a coincidence."

"For many years, Princess Thunder was known for her beautiful smile and people came from far and wide to see it." Vanille glanced behind the couch and right on cue several other puppets popped out, bowing and dancing around the princess. "However, one day an evil witch appeared."

"Haha, I am an evil witch Lhij!" The voice was unmistakably Diana's, and as she spoke, the little girl held up a blonde puppet with glasses. "Behold my evilness."

Clearly, Fang thought, Vanille had let the girls help with the dialogue.

"The evil witch Lhij was jealous of Princess Thunder and so she used her evil magic to steal the princess's smile," Vanille said.

"Aghhh… my smile!" The puppet of the princess flailed frantically about as Averia, sounding more than a little embarrassed, did her best to produce the appropriate sound effects.

"After that," Vanille said, "The princess could not smile any more and so people started to call her Princess Grumpy Guts for she became so grumpy that it looked like she always had a stomach ache." The Princess Thunder puppet was replaced by another one that was almost identical except for the massive frown drawn onto its face.

This time, it wasn't just Fang that looked at Lightning. Serah and Snow did too.

"What?" Lightning asked.

"You know, maybe Fang was right," Snow said, careful to keep out Lightning's reach. "That Princess Grumpy Guts does sort of sound like someone we know."

"Yes." Serah grinned. "And I don't know that many other people with pink hair and blue eyes. In fact, I can only think of one other..."

"Do not finish that sentence, Serah." Lightning folded her arms over her chest. "And I do not look that grumpy."

"No one said it was you," Vanille pointed out before she once again took on her stage voice. "Anyway… Princess Grumpy Guts was not alone, you see, she had a sister." A new puppet appeared up, one that also had pink hair. It was a little shorter than Princess Grumpy Guts though, and in place of her frown, it wore a sunny smile. "Her sister's name was Princess Candy Floss."

"I am Princess Candy Floss, behold how nice I am." Diana waved Princess Candy Floss around. "Even though my sister has become a Grumpy Guts who never smiles, that's okay. I still love her just as much."

Serah's lips twitched as Fang struggled to hold back a laugh. In the mean time, Lightning had resorted to trying to kill Vanille with her eyes. Vanille just grinned.

"Now, Princess Candy Floss loved her sister very, very much." Princess Candy Floss grabbed at Princess Grumpy Guts and the sounds of a scuffle came from behind the couch. Clearly, Diana had felt the need to hug her sister for real. "In fact, she loved her so much that unless her sister was happy, she didn't think she that could be happy."

This time, Serah's lips did more than twitch. Her whole body shook.

"You see," Vanille said. "Princess Candy Floss was in love with the dashing captain of the palace guard. His name was Captain Courageous, and he loved Princess Candy Floss with all his heart."

A new puppet appeared, one with blonde hair and blue eyes and what had to either be a cape or a trench coat. "I am Captain Courageous," Claire shouted, her voice lowered to try and sound more masculine. "I am the hero of the kingdom, and I love Princess Candy Floss with all my heart."

Snow grinned, but the expression quickly faded when Princess Grumpy Guts gave Captain Courageous a solid whack over the head.

"I am Princess Grumpy Guts," Averia cried. "And nothing makes me happy!"

Serah gave Lightning a teasing look, one that Lightning steadfastly refused to return. However, she couldn't escape the look of amusement on Fang's face as the green-eyed woman leaned over to whisper in her ear.

"Still think it doesn't sound like a certain somebody we all know and love?" Fang asked.

"Oh, be quiet," Lightning said. "At least I'm in the show."

"Anyway," Vanille said with another meaningful glance at the captive audience. "Although Princess Candy Floss loved Captain Courageous with all her heart, she could not bring herself to marry him until her sister had gotten her smile back."

Fang grinned at Serah. "Hmmm… I seem to recall a certain somebody who wouldn't get married until her sister had found someone of her own to love."

Serah shot Lightning a teasing glance. "How do you put up with her?"

"She grows on you," Lightning said. She smirked at Fang. "Like moss on a rock."

"So," Vanille continued, "Captain Courageous had no choice but to set out on a journey to find Princess Grumpy Guts' smile." Another puppet popped up, blonde and blue eyed, but considerably shorter than Captain Courageous and with what was clearly a boomerang in one hand. "He travelled far and wide with his faithful friend, Lieutenant Wish. The two of them searched the whole kingdom, but no matter how hard they looked, they could not find the princess's smile." The two puppets wandered through cardboard cut outs of deserts, forests, and mountains. "Finally they heard whispers of a wise and beautiful fairy who might be able to help them."

"The journey to the fairy was long and arduous…" Once again the two puppets tromped past an assortment of cardboard obstacles. "But finally, Captain Courageous and Lieutenant Wish reached the wise and beautiful fairy."

Vanille ducked behind the couch and a second later another puppet appeared, one that looked suspiciously similar to her, save for the addition of a pair of fairy wings. "I am the wise and beautiful fairy… and because of how wise and beautiful I am, everybody calls me the Awesome Fairy." Instead of the deep, appropriately epic voice she had used when narrating, Vanille had adopted a somewhat higher pitched, cutesy tone. It was sugary enough to make Lightning's teeth hurt.

Lightning's eye twitched. "Why am I not surprised that she called herself the Awesome Fairy?"

Fang grinned back. "Well, she is pretty awesome."

"Oh great and powerful Awesome Fairy," Averia said, waving around Captain Courageous. "You must help us. I am looking for Princess Grumpy Guts' smile so that I can marry my beloved Princess Candy Floss."

Lieutenant Wish's puppet twitched before a rather embarrassed sounding Hope spoke. "Uh… I'm with him."

"Do it better," Vanille growled, just loud enough for their audience to catch.

"She's can be very pushy, can't she?" Serah asked.

Lightning gave her sister a look. "You're hardly one to talk."

"I'm not that bad –"

"The movie, Serah, the movie." Lightning made a disgusted sound. "I wasted two hours of my life, and I'll never get them back."

Hope cleared his throat. "I am Lieutenant Wish, and I have chosen to accompany the great Captain Courageous on his noble quest. Please, wise and beautiful Awesome Fairy, help us to restore the princess's smile."

"Better," Vanille whispered. She raised her voice. "You have journeyed very far to request my help. However, before I help you, you must first prove your worthiness." The Awesome Fairy waved around in the air as a new puppet appeared. "Defeat my champion, Talon the Smirker and I will help you."

A broad smile spread across Lightning's lips as she turned from the newly introduced puppet, one with a big mop of dark hair, green button eyes, and a pencil for a spear, to Fang. "You know that kind of…"

"I do not smirk that much," Fang growled. The three others all turned to give her sceptical looks. "I don't… do I?"

"You do." Lightning chuckled. "But I love you anyway."

"I am Talon the Smirker," Diana cried. The Talon puppet cavorted across the top of the couch. "Nobody smirks as much as me." The puppet whacked Captain Courageous on the head. "Prepare to be speared!"

"Captain Courageous and Talon the Smirker fought an epic duel," Vanille said as the two puppets flailed wildly at each other. "However, in the end, Talon the Smirker proved victorious." Snow winced as the Captain Courageous puppet took a pencil to the gut and keeled over. In contrast, Fang looked quite pleased. "However, the Awesome Fairy was so inspired by Captain Courageous's effort that she agreed to help them anyway."

"The reason that Princess Grumpy Guts cannot smile is because the evil witch Lhij has stolen her smile," Vanille said. The Awesome Fairy puppet moved back and forth through the air. "To get the princess's smile back, you must find out where the witch has hidden it."

"But Awesome Fairy," Claire said as she brought the battered Captain Courageous puppet back to its feet. "Where can we find the evil witch Lhij?"

"Hmmm…" The Awesome Fairy floated over toward Captain Awesome. "I do not know exactly where she is, but Talon the Smirker will help you. She has such a pathetically obvious crush on Princess Grumpy Guts that she'd do anything to help the princess out."

"Hey!" Fang growled. "I did not have a pathetically obvious crush on anyone."

"Shh…" Snow said. "And you sort of did. When you weren't teasing Lightning you were ogling her. Heck, Lightning was probably the only one who didn't notice. I mean, I'm not exactly the most observant person and even I caught on within a day or two."

Vanille peeked over the couch to glare at the audience. A moment later, she was joined by Diana, the little girl doing her best to imitate her mother's infamous death glare. "Quiet."

Vanille ducked back behind the couch. "Anyway, Captain Courageous, Lieutenant Wish, and Talon the Smirker set out to find the witch. Luckily for them, Talon was a skilled tracker, so it wasn't long before they tracked the witch down to a far away town in another kingdom." The bespectacled figure of the evil witch Lhij reappeared together with a collection of several cardboard houses. "When the three adventurers finally saw the evil witch, they were filled with anger, for lo and behold, the evil witch was wearing the princess's smile!"

And sure enough, there was a huge smile drawn onto puppet of the evil witch Lhij.

"Although the three adventurers were very angry," Vanille said as the puppets of all three waved about in furious fashion. "They knew that they could not just attack the witch because of her evil magical powers. Several times they tried to sneak into the evil witch's big, creepy house, but each time the witch was too clever and they had to run away before they were caught." The three puppets circled one of the large cardboard houses only to be turned away by a cackling evil witch Jihl. "Finally, Talon the Smirker came up with a clever plan – they would disguise themselves and pretend to be servants so that they could learn the evil witch's secrets and get back the princess's smile."

Three differently clothed puppets replaced the originals.

"The evil witch was very smart, but she was also very greedy, so she was only too eager to accept three new servants. The three adventurers worked for the witch for many days and suffered many indignities." The puppets of the three adventurers were knocked around by the evil witch Lhij, whose cackling had taken on almost diabolic proportions. Frankly, Fang and Lightning weren't sure if they should be proud or disturbed that their younger daughter could make a noise like that. "Finally, however, the three adventurers learned the witch's secret. Using her evil magic, the evil witch had stolen the princess's smile and locked it away inside a magic mirror. Each morning she could look into the mirror to put on the princess's smile, and each evening she would look into it again to put it back. The only way to get the princess's smile back would be to have her look into it to get her smile back and then break it to make sure that it could never be kept there again."

Fang looked at Lightning. Slowly, deliberately, she reached over to pull Lightning's lips into a smile. "Hmmm… now, that's what I call a smile." Lightning just rolled her eyes, but made no effort to push Fang's hands away.

"So," Vanille said. "The three adventurers waited and waited until one day there was a big storm. The clouds were so dark that it was almost impossible to see, and the thunder was so loud that even the witch couldn't hear them sneaking around." Cardboard clouds and bolts of lightning filled the air around the puppets as Claire and Averia added the appropriate sound effects. "In the middle of the night, they stole the mirror and then ran away as fast as they could. The witch discovered what they had done in the morning and tried to follow them, but it was too late – the rain had washed all their tracks away." The puppet of the evil witch Lhij stomped around her cardboard house.

"The three adventurers hurried back to the two princesses. When they got back, Princess Candy Floss was overjoyed to see Captain Courageous, for he had been gone for many days. She was even happier when Captain Courageous showed her the mirror and told her that he had finally gotten her sister's smile back. They called Princess Grumpy Guts right away and when she looked into the mirror and broke it, her smile returned at once! No longer would people call her Princess Grumpy Guts. Instead, she was Princess Thunder again, and her smile was as beautiful as ever!"

"Yay!" Diana cheered as all of the puppets danced around in obvious joy. "We win, we win!"

The four members of the audience clapped.

"So," Fang asked. "Is that the end or do we get to find out what happened next?"

Vanille's glanced over the couch. "Of course you do. Naturally, Princess Candy Floss and Captain courageous got married and had a beautiful daughter of their own." She chuckled. "And of course, Princess Thunder and Talon the Smirker got along wonderfully, even if the princess didn't like how much Talon smirked." Right on cue, the Princess Thunder puppet gave the Talon puppet a solid whack over the head. "And as for Lieutenant Wish… well, he had many adventures of his own. In fact, he even fell in love with the Awesome Fairy, but that's a story for another time."

That last part drew curious looks from Lightning and Snow, while Serah was happy just to grin. Fang, however, looked decidedly less than pleased and behind the couch, Hope felt his blood run cold.

"Is that so?" Fang asked slowly. Suddenly all of the little things she'd been seeing recently made sense, all the times that Vanille had touched Hope just a little bit more or longer than was necessary. Her eyes narrowed.

Vanille met Fang's look evenly. "It is, and just in case you were wondering, the Awesome Fairy loved him back." She reached down and pulled the girls and Hope up to their feet. "Now how about you give everyone behind his little production another round of applause."

X X X

Hope gave a sigh of relief as Lightning re-entered the living room. From all the commotion that had come from upstairs, it must have been quite a task to get the girls settled into bed. Diana had definitely enjoyed putting on the show, and so had Averia, although the older girl had been a little subtler in showing her appreciation. Still, she'd been just as adamant as Diana in holding onto the puppets that they'd made.

While Lightning had been upstairs, he had been forced to share the living room with Fang and Vanille. Now, sharing a room with Vanille was always pleasant, and he normally got along quite well with Fang, but for the past fifteen minutes, the older woman had fixed him with a glare that would given Lightning a run for her money. He wasn't even sure if she'd blinked at all since she'd begun to glare at him.

Seemingly oblivious to all of this, Vanille had chosen the absolute worst time to cuddle up to him. She had one arm around his waist, and her head on his shoulder. It was very, very tempting to put one of his arms around her and pull her closer, but with Fang looking at him like that, it probably wasn't a good idea. Not if he wanted to keep his arms, anyway.

"Thank your for looking after the kids," Lightning said as she sat down next to Fang. The other woman immediately put one arm around her, though her glare remained fixed on Hope. "That was quite a story and the girls definitely had a lot of fun. The ending was also very… interesting."

"Yes." Fang twitched. "It was very, very interesting." Her eyes narrowed. "Wouldn't you say, Hope?"

"Uh… maybe?" Hope did his best not to cringe as Fang's eyes narrowed. What was it that people always said? Ah yes… discretion was the better part of valour. "Well, it's a little late, so I should probably get going. I have some work to do tomorrow and, well, you know how it is."

As Hope got to his feet, Vanille kept a firm hold of him. "Yes, I should probably be going too." She ran her fingers up Hope's arm. "Walk me home?"

Hope nodded and practically dragged Vanille out of the room. "See you two later."

Outside the house, Hope turned to Vanille. "Did you really have to break it to them like that?"

"I thought it went rather well." Vanille chuckled. "The story had everything, and they were going to find out sooner or later." She bit her lip. "You're not mad at me are you?"

Hope sighed. "No… I'm not mad. They were going to find out anyway, it's just… well, you're not the one Fang was glaring at." He shivered and glanced over his shoulder. "Look, she's still glaring."

And sure enough, watching them like a hawk through the front windows of the house was Fang. As Hope met her gaze, she gave him a toothy smile.

"See," Vanille said as she tugged Hope away from the house. "She's smiling."

"I don't think that was a happy smile, Vanille." Hope sighed. He was going to die. He just knew it.

X X X

Lightning struggled not to smile as she changed out of her clothes and slipped into bed. Normally, she'd have struggled to get even just her shirt off without Fang making some attempt to get them into bed – and undressed – faster. However, for the time being, the other woman seemed content to pace from one side of the room to the other, her fine features drawn into a scowl instead of the usual smirk.

"That little…" Fang ground out. "Going behind my back like that. I can't believe it…" She trailed off into what Lightning knew to be Pulsian. Even if she couldn't understand all the words, she recognised a few choice phrases, which Fang had a habit of using either when she was very angry, or in the midst of passion. "Gah!"

Lightning couldn't help herself. She laughed.

Fang rounded on her immediately. "What's so funny?" She barked. "What about this do you find funny?"

Lightning just grinned and patted the bed beside her. Fang didn't move. "Quite a lot of it actually. Remember all those times you told me that Serah was a grown woman, that she could make her own choices?"

"That was different." Fang folded her arms over her chest. "Snow's a nice guy. Who knows what Hope's been up to, he probably took advantage of Vanille and –"

Lightning's brows furrowed. "Stop right there." She got up and wrapped her arms around Fang. The other woman softened just a little. "You know Hope, you've known him for years. Do you really think that he'd ever take advantage of Vanille?"

Fang clenched her jaw. "No, he wouldn't." She made a disgusted sound. "Actually knowing Vanille, she probably took advantage of him."

"Yes, she probably did." Lightning let one hand rest on the flat plane of Fang's stomach. "When Serah and Snow got married, you said a lot of things to me that really helped." She paused. "Vanille is a grown woman now. I know she's your little sister and I know that you love her a lot, but do you really want her to be on her own forever?"

Fang relaxed a little more and let Lightning lead her over to sit on their bed. "No, it's just… she's a little young."

"Fang, the two of you are over five hundred." Lightning smiled at the look of outrage on Fang's face. "But really, she's not a child any more. I know that you want to protect her, and that's fine, but she'll be okay. Hope will do right by her and if he doesn't…" She grinned. "Then I suppose you can go off and spear him, but we both know it won't come to that."

"You know I hate it when you're right, don't you?" Fang drawled, though there was a ghost of a smile on her lips.

"Yes, frequently." Lightning grinned. "But that doesn't change the fact that I am right, frequently."

"I suppose so." Fang leaned against Lightning. "But you know, as Vanille's sister, I still have to scare him, you know, put him through the wringer, let him know just what will happen if he messes this up."

Lightning chuckled. "By all means, but just don't do anything too drastic, although Vanille is quite a good healer."

Fang made a face. "Look at me, taking advice on relationships from Princess Grumpy Guts."

"I'll have you know that I prefer Princess Thunder," Lightning replied.

"I'm sure you do." More relaxed now, Fang was keenly of aware of how much – or rather, how little – Lightning was wearing. There would be time to scare Hope to death later, in fact, she was quite looking forward to making the blonde squirm, but Lightning was right. He would be good for Vanille. Etro help him if he ever hurt her though. Still, the presence of a scantily clad Lightning meant that there were other, more pressing matters to attend to. "You know," Fang said as she traced Lightning's lips with one finger. "You really do have a wonderful smile."

Lightning smiled, though the expression was more sultry than sunny. "I know, you tell me quite frequently about how much more often you'd like to see it." Her smiled widened as she let Fang press her back onto the bed.

"But there is something I like doing more than making you smile." Fang's lips wandered from Lightning's down to the other woman's throat and then lower still as her hands made short work of what little clothing Lightning still wore.

"And what would that be?" Lightning asked.

Fang smirked. "Making you scream."

X X X

**Author's Notes**

As always, I neither own Final Fantasy, nor am I making any money off of this.

So… long time, no see, at least for this story. As some of you have already worked out, Tell Me A Story is something that I write whenever I come across something that I think fits the format. Recently, I've been working on writing some fairytales. Now, that might sound crazy, but I find it's a fun thing to do, and it really has forced me to focus and improve on some different aspects of my writing.

When I was a child, I remember reading a lot of fairytales (both the happy go lucky kind, and the more serious kind), and one fairy tale in particular that I've always liked is the Princess Who Never Smiled. Now, in that story, the princess is a particularly unhappy one and her hand in marriage is promised to whoever can make her smile. A servant boy manages to make her smile through a series of humorous coincidences involving helpful animals. There are at least two other variants of this story (The Golden Goose and the Magic Swan), but all three of them share the idea that the person who makes the unhappy princess smile gets to marry her.

I liked the story well enough, but I decided that I wanted to write my own storying involving a princess's smile. That story of mine is what the puppet show in this chapter is based on. Frankly, I wanted my story to have more things happening in it, and witches, magic mirrors, wise fairies and the like are all devices that I enjoyed in other fairytales. Interestingly enough, that story comes in at just under 1000 words, not too bad for a fairytale.

As for the actual subject matter of this chapter… yes, Vanille and Hope are in a relationship. I thought it was about time to have the focus on them, and this seemed like a great, and plausible (in my mind, at least) way to do it. Also, I think that Fang would make a hilarious overly protective sister. As for the puppet show… I think cardboard puppets are cool. I've also been watching a bit of South Park recently…

For anyone who didn't catch it, here are the characters the puppet show was referencing:

Princess Thunder = Lightning

Princess Candy Floss = Serah

Captain Courageous = Snow

Lieutenant Wish = Hope

The Awesome Fairy = Vanille

Talon the Smirker = Fang

The Evil Witch Lhij = Jihl (Lhij is just Jihl backwards)

As always, I appreciate feedback. Reviews and comments are welcome.


	6. Chapter 6

**New Arrival**

If there was one thing that Fang had learned raising Averia and Diana, it was that silence meant trouble. The girls had a tendency to quieten down when they were plotting, and any long period of silence was invariably followed by some kind of crazy scheme. And the schemes were crazy – and getting crazier every year, which she blamed almost entirely on Vanille. The red head took her role as the 'cool aunt' a little seriously for Fang's liking.

Of course, it could also have been the fact that Vanille didn't usually have to deal with the aftermath of the girls' crazy schemes. No, Vanille was the one who got to take the girls to the movies and pump them full of enough candy and sugar to give a Behemoth King diabetes. It was then up to Fang and Lightning to deal with the little sugar fuelled monsters when they got home. Thankfully, however, Lightning had put a stop to the worst of it. Fang had never really been able to get tough with Vanille, but Lightning had no such qualms.

What was even worse than silence, though, was muffled giggling. That meant the girls were probably plotting some especially crazy scheme, something that could easily have all of them on their hands and knees begging Lightning for forgiveness when it inevitably went horribly wrong. Of course, Fang wouldn't normally mind getting on her hands and knees for Lightning – or better yet, getting Lightning on her hands and knees – but not if all she was going to do was grovel.

With a sigh, Fang put down the report she was working on. Nothing interesting had happened on her latest expedition, but she still had to file a report. Maker, people from Cocoon were such sticklers for paperwork! Giving the report one last glare, she headed into the living room to see just what her little girls were up to. Sure enough, both of them were sitting on the couch surrounded by a pile of large books and giggling to themselves.

"Mind sharing the joke?" Fang drawled.

Averia looked up. "Oh, mommy." She held the book in her lap up and waved it around. "We were just taking a look at this."

Fang tilted her head to one side. That was one of the photo albums that she and Lightning had. Sure, they could have just put all the pictures on a computer or something, but there was something nice about having actual pictures to look at and hold. "What were you looking for…" Fang trailed off as Diana climbed onto the back of the couch and steadied herself. "What are you doing, Diana?"

"Take this! It's my ultimate attack!" Diana cried as she hurled herself at Fang with all her might, which, fortunately for everyone involved, was not very much at all.

"What have I told you about doing that?" Fang growled playfully as the girl caught her right in the middle. Swaying back a step, she gave Diana a poke in the side and tucked the girl under her arm. Honestly, the girl really did liked being carried around and if Fang was honest, she really liked carrying her around. It might not be long before Diana was too big to carry around or, like Averia, refused to be carried around. "So, which pictures were you looking at?" Fang asked as she carried Diana back to the couch and sat down beside Averia.

"I have an assignment," Averia explained. "We're supposed to write a biography about ourselves and my teacher said we should have pictures from when we were little, so I was looking for some." She pointed to one of the pictures on the page in front of her. It showed Diana riding on her back and waving a pillow around while fighting a pillow wielding Yuffie who was riding on Claire's back. The two younger girls were locked in an epic duel with both of their faithful steeds looking decidedly unhappy about being used in place of chocobos. "I remember when this happened. Diana invited Yuffie over and they had that huge pillow fight. Mom got mad since some of the pillows exploded."

"That she did," Fang said. She smirked. "But she didn't stay mad at you girls for long."

Diana giggled. "Because then you hit her with a pillow." She looked up at Fang and grinned. "Then mom beat you up really good."

Fang scowled. True, Lightning had bested her in the noble sport of pillow fighting. However, she firmly believed that it was only because the situation had been unfair because pillows were more like swords than spears or lances. If someone could just invent some kind of lance or spear pillow, then she would definitely be able to give Lightning a run for her money. Still, it hadn't been all bad. Yuffie had left that afternoon claiming that their house was the most awesome place in the universe. In fact, those had been the little girl's exact words.

"Do you have any pictures you like?" Fang asked Diana.

Diana nodded and flipped the album to a different page. One of the pictures there showed a younger Averia handing over the very first of her baby teeth to fall out to the tooth fairy in exchange for a few gil. In this case, the tooth fairy was Vanille in a pink wig with a pink tutu and little fairy wings taped onto her back. That had been Lightning's revenge for being forced to dress up as Santa. Frankly, Fang was just glad she hadn't been forced into the tutu. She might look good in almost anything, but a tutu was probably pushing things a little.

"What do you like about the picture?" Fang asked.

Diana smiled. "Averia looks really funny. She's missing one of her teeth and she's all small and everything." She studied the picture more keenly. "She's only my size in the picture, but she's always been bigger than me." She paused. "And the tooth fairy looks cool too."

"Well, Averia wasn't always big, you know," Fang said. She flipped through to where she knew some of Averia's baby pictures were. "See?"

Diana's eyes widened and she waved one hand at the pictures. "Look, mommy. Averia's all squishy looking."

Averia's cheeks flushed and she scowled. "I did not look squishy looking." She paused at the smirks on both Diana and Fang's face. "I'm telling you, I didn't look squishy looking!"

Only, Fang thought, she sort of had. The picture they were all looking at showed Averia at no more than a few months old. She was clutching at Fang's finger as Fang gave her a playful rub on the stomach. With her wisp of pink hair and her face scrunched up into something that was halfway between crying and laughing, she really did look quite squishy. Lightning was in the background of the picture, rolling her eyes at Fang.

"How about this one?" Diana asked as she pointed to another picture. "You look really cute in this one, Averia."

In the picture, Averia was walking toward Lightning. The older Farron had her arms outstretched in welcome and Averia was half-walking, half-stumbling toward her. Averia's face was a perfect picture of concentration as she regarded the gap between her and her mother with all the seriousness someone might reserve for a battlefield.

"What's your favourite picture, mommy?" Averia asked. She thought she looked a little silly in the pictures they'd look at so far, and she definitely did not look cute. Cute was Diana's thing. She wanted to look nice and serious. After all, someone had to be when their mom wasn't around.

Fang grinned evilly. She knew just the one. Beside her, Averia winced. She knew that grin. "This one," Fang said as she flipped through a few pages. "It was taken just after you were born."

Diana took one look at the picture and then burst out laughing. Within moments, she was laughing so hard, that she could only flop off the couch to roll around on the floor. "That's the best one, mommy!" she managed in between guffaws. "The best one ever!"

The picture showed a newly born Averia in Lightning's arm. Fang had her infamous smirk on her face and whatever she'd just said had brought out Lightning's equally infamous scowl. But what had reduced Diana almost to tears of laughter was the look on Averia's face, a look that Averia was giving both her and Fang right that moment. The Averia in the picture was giving Fang a vicious, vicious scowl, one that looked practically identical to the one on Lightning's face.

"That has to be fake," Averia grumbled as she crossed her arms over her chest. "Babies can't scowl like that."

Fang gave Averia's hair an affectionate ruffle, which only deepened the girl's scowl. "Believe me, Averia, it's real. You really did scowl at me just after you were born, and what a scowl it was." She grinned. "Hey, you said you needed to write a biography didn't you? How about I tell you all about the day you were born?"

"I suppose you could," Averia said. "I don't think I've heard that story before." She glared at Fang. "It doesn't have kissing and all that stuff in it, does it?"

Fang shook her head. "Not really." Her lips curled. "Most of that comes before. Anyway, here's what happened…"

X X X

"Fang could you get me another mug of hot chocolate?"

Fang smiled at Lightning and got up. Despite the fact that the pink haired woman was convinced that she looked and felt like a whale, she'd never been more beautiful to Fang, and that was saying something. It didn't matter that Lightning's stomach was huge – and it was – because it was huge with their child. It also helped that Lightning had passed her murderous craving stage. One almost fatal scenario involving ice cream was enough to last Fang a lifetime. Heck, she still couldn't look at vanilla ice cream without shuddering a little. Just what did Lightning have against vanilla?

"Sure, I'll get you some more." Fang grinned. "Just stay right there." She paused as Lightning put one hand to her stomach. The baby wasn't due for another two or three weeks, but she didn't want to take any chance. "Hey, Lightning, are you okay there?"

Lightning nodded. "It's fine, I think I might have eaten a little too many pancakes." She sighed. "Now, how about that hot chocolate?"

"Yes, ma'am." Fang threw Lightning a jaunty salute and then headed into the kitchen to prepare another mug of hot chocolate. Honestly, given Lightning's love of the beverage during her pregnancy, their kid would probably have a pretty big sweet tooth.

She was just adding a little sugar to the hot chocolate when she heard Lightning curse. She blinked. Lightning wasn't normally one to curse, not unless she was bleeding all over the place, and even then, she had a tendency to just scowl at her injuries almost as though she could intimidate them into healing. "Lightning," she called, "Are you okay?"

There was no reply.

Feeling a little worried now, Fang ducked back into the dining room with the hot chocolate. "Lightning?"

The pink hair woman remained silent. Instead, she was staring blankly at a large wet patch on the floor beneath her chair.

Fang chuckled. "Oh, did you spill something? Don't worry I'll clean that up and –"

"Fang…" Lightning looked up and the stunned look on the pink haired woman's face was enough to freeze Fang in her tracks. She'd never seen Lightning look so… well, not scared, but… freaked out before. "I didn't spill anything"

"Then what –" Fang dropped the mug, ignoring the pain as some of the hot liquid splashed onto her leg. If Lightning hadn't spilt anything that could only mean… "Did your water just break?"

Lightning nodded very, very slowly. "I think so." She looked somewhere between embarrassed and terrified. "I mean…"

Fang was at Lightning's side in an instant. "What do you mean you think so? It either did or it didn't?" She'd attended several births as a young woman in Oerba, but this was different. This wasn't some clanswoman or something, this was Lightning, her Lightning – her Lightning about to pop a little person out of her vagina. Oh sweet Maker, Fang thought, she was going to faint…

Slap.

"Calm down!" Lightning growled as she staggered onto her feet, only to let out a low groan as she clutched at her stomach. "Ah!" She bit her lip. Whatever trace of fear her face had shown before was gone. In its place there was only steely determination. She slapped Fang again as the other woman continued to stare into space and mumble something about an impending apocalypse. "Fang, we need to get to the hospital." She winced as another stab of pain rippled through her. "NOW!"

Fang finally snapped out of her daze. Right. The end of the world hadn't come, it was just Lightning giving birth. Oh whom was she kidding this practically was the end of the world. She rubbed her cheek. Damn, Lightning could hit hard for a pregnant woman. "Right… right." She grabbed the car keys and ran for the door only to double back as she realised that Lightning was still right next to her chair. She took one look at the other woman and flailed her arms about in indecision. "Do you want me to uh…" She cursed. "Damn it, never mind!" Before Lightning could get a word out, she scooped the other woman up in her arms, only just barely managing to avoid banging Lightning's head on the doorframe as they lurched through the front door toward the car.

"It'll be okay," Fang said, getting Lightning into the backseat before tripping over the newspaper. Maker, of all the places for the newspaper to land, it had to be in next to the car. Frantically, she picked herself up off the ground and all but threw herself into the driver's seat. "It'll be okay," she said. "It'll be okay." Just whom she was trying to convince, herself or Lightning, she wasn't sure.

Naturally, it wasn't the least bit okay.

In typically convenient fashion, the Maker had decided that Lightning should start giving birth in the middle of the morning rush hour. The hospital, normally only a short drive away, might as well have been on the moon considering all the traffic backed up beside them, in front of them, and behind them.

"Oh!" Lightning screamed. "Fang!"

"It'll be okay!" Fang screamed back, voice more than a little squeaky. Damn it, she sounded like Hope when his voice had broken. Quickly, she reached back to see how dilated Lightning was. Sweet Etro…

"Fang!" Lightning roared. The expression on her face was beyond murderous. "I need to get to the hospital right now!"

"There's a traffic jam!" Fang wailed, banging her hands on the steering wheel. Damn it, how exactly could there even be a traffic jam this bad? New Bodhum didn't even have that many people in it. The answer to her question came in the form of a Guardian Corps officer who knocked on their window as Fang slammed her hand down on the horn over and over again.

"Excuse me, ma'am, but if you could just stop that would be great. There's been an accident just ahead and…" He trailed off as he saw Lightning in the back seat breathing like a steam engine and cursing wildly.

"Uh, Captain Farron?"

"Get out!" Lightning yelled. "And get that accident cleared, sergeant, or so help me, I'll have you court martialled and locked in a military prison for the rest of your life!"

The sergeant looked like he wanted to say something, but thought better of it and ran for the scene of the accident like his life depended on it. Which it did, as a matter of fact. However, when several minutes passed with no sign of the traffic jam disappearing, Lightning leaned forward and grabbed Fang by her sari. She yanked the garment back until Fang's back was flush with the seat, the sari actually beginning to cut off some of her oxygen supply as Lightning pulled it taut. Lightning leaned forward, gasping and wheezing, and looked straight into Fang's eyes.

"Fang," she ground out. "I am not having our baby in the backseat of our car. So you either get me to the hospital right now, or I swear, as the Maker and Etro are my witnesses, I will never have sex with you again!"

Never. Have. Sex. With. Lightning. Again.

A desperate situation had just turned absolutely diabolical.

Lightning had turned Fang's sari into a makeshift noose and the lack of oxygen combined with the most devastating threat to her sex life that Fang had ever known left the huntress with only one choice. She knew what she had to do. Smiling beatifically, and perhaps, slightly moronically due to the lack of air, she pried Lightning's hands off her.

"I understand."

Fang kicked the driver's side door open and leapt onto the hood of the car. With her hands outstretched to the heavens, she called upon the only force she could think of that could get her out of her predicament. "Bahamut!"

The sky shook as the metal dragon appeared with a mighty roar. He flared his wings out and then dove low over the sea of cars. Not surprisingly, the people in the cars closest to them were very quick to abandon their vehicles as the dragon banked and then came in to land with a crunch as he crumpled the front of one car and dented another. Irritated, the eidolon gave a few other cars a quick look to make sure they were empty before shoving them out of the way to make more space. Good, a dragon needed a certain amount of personal space.

Fang sent a prayer to Etro and then ducked back into the car to grab Lightning. "All right, Bahamut, get us to the hospital."

The eidolon took one look at the screaming pregnant woman and balked. This, the dragon thought, was not what it had signed up for. Fighting fal'Cie was one thing, carrying around pregnant women waving around gun blades was quite another. However, before the dragon could even think of retreating, it found itself staring down the barrel of Lightning's gun blade into the most deadly serious blue eyes it had ever known.

"You are taking us to the hospital, Bahamut."

Slowly, the dragon nodded.

Lightning lowered the gun blade – she always kept at least one in their car – and smiled at Fang. "You called your eidolon for me." She threw her arms around Fang as the other woman lifted her and then leapt onto Bahamut's back. "I love you so, so much."

Only a few, short minutes later, they landed on the front lawn of the hospital. There was a great deal of screaming as Fang jumped off Bahamut's back with Lightning cradled in her arms. Apparently, the medical staff were not used to seeing metal dragons on a regular basis, especially harried, mentally scarred looking metal dragons. Indeed, anything that could mentally scar something like Bahamut was not something the hospital wanted anything to do with. It was just too bad that Fang didn't plan on giving them a choice.

"You!" Fang growled at one of the doctors staring at the dragon. "Ignore the dragon." She glanced down at Lightning. "Help her." The doctor looked dumbly from the dragon to the pregnant woman. "What are you gawking at? She needs help. NOW!"

The next few moments passed in a blur as a nurse fetched a wheelchair for Lightning and all of them headed for the one of the delivery rooms. Vaguely, Fang was aware of the doctors and nurses shooting worried looks over their shoulders at the dragon that had decided to curl up on the front lawn. Bahamut watched the medical staff closely. They looked pretty tasty and if something happened to the woman that Fang loved then Bahamut would see just how tasty they really were.

X X X

"Wow!" Diana said. She was looking at Fang in absolute awe. She'd always known that her mommy was cool now she knew that her mommy was actually was super, super cool, like cooler than Gary and Mr Snaggles combined cool. "You got mom to hospital on Mr Snaggles. You're the coolest mommy ever!"

Averia grinned. "What happened to the Guardian Corps sergeant?"

"Nothing really," Fang said. Her lips twitched. "Giving birth can make people say some crazy things." She shuddered, remembering some of the things she'd said when giving birth to Diana. "Trust me." She was about to continue when there was a knock at the door. "Wait, let me get that."

"No," Diana said. "Finish the story, mommy!"

"I will, I will," Fang promised. "Just let me get the door first."

It was Serah. The younger Farron had a smile on her face and a box of chocolates in her arms.

"Claire is out with Snow – something about daddy-daughter time." She rolled her eyes and chuckled good-naturedly. "You know how he gets sometimes. He's afraid Claire's going to grow up and want to spend all her time with me. But that's silly, she's her daddy's little girl and she always will be." She waved the box of chocolates around. "So, I thought I'd come over. You want some?"

"Sure thing," Fang said. She tilted her head to one side. "But you're going to have to share those with Averia and Diana. We're in the middle of a story."

"Oh?" Serah followed Fang into the living room and squeezed onto the couch beside them. Both Diana and Averia managed to say hello before their attention went to the chocolate. Just for fun, Serah moved it around, and she laughed softly as their eyes followed the box of sweets. Grinning, she opened the box and offered each of them a chocolate. "So, girls, what story is your mommy telling you?"

"It's about the day I was born," Averia said.

"Mommy was just up to the part where she got to the hospital on Bahamut." Diana punched the air. "It was awesome."

"Really?" Serah's lips curved into a mischievous grin. "Well, you know, I was there too." 

"You were?" Diana asked.

"Yes, I was." Serah's grin widened as Fang shuddered. "In fact, when I got there…"

X X X

Serah burst through the door, glad that she wasn't too pregnant to run. Behind her, she heard Snow shout for her to slow down, but she pressed on. She had a few more months before her own baby was due, but right now she needed to be there for Lightning. They were sisters, and apart from Fang, there wasn't a person in the world who needed to be there for Lightning right now more than Serah.

Along with Serah and Snow, the rest of the former l'Cie were there as well. Dajh, by some lucky coincidence, was on a school camp, which meant Sazh was free to stay for however long the birth took.

Serah stopped just outside the delivery room with the others, horrified by the sounds she heard coming from within. Lightning was screaming and wailing and cursing in what had to be the most skilful blend of Cocoon slang and Pulsian vulgarity that Serah had ever heard. The Pulsian in particular had to be especially bad, since even Vanille looked a little queasy, and the red head could curse up a storm if she had to.

"You know," Sazh remarked dryly as he took one big step away from the doors of the delivery room. "Maybe it was a bad idea to come here." He ignored Serah's glare and continued. "Now, I love soldier girl just like all of you, but I think we all know how bad she can be even when she's not screaming her lungs out and threatening to kill Fang in two languages. As it is, I'm not even in that room and I'm scared."

Serah's glare faded. Sazh sort of had a point. Her sister… well, everyone knew how much Serah loved Lightning, but right now, the threats coming from Lightning were terrifying indeed. Even worse was the fact that Lightning actually could carry most of them out. For instance, she probably could cut Fang up into a million little pieces with her gun blade if she felt so inclined. But still, Serah was Lightning's sister, so she should be safe. Right? Right?

Wrong.

"Okay," Serah said, sparing a moment to give an utterly traumatised looking Hope a quick smile. "I'm going in. Wish me luck."

Sazh nodded grimly. "Good luck. I think you'll need it." Then quietly, and more than a little wistfully, he added, "I know I sure did when I went in when Dajh was getting born. My wife was a wonderful woman, but some of the things she said then… well, I wouldn't wish some of them on my worst enemy."

Serah pushed through the last set of doors into the delivery room itself. What greeted her was like something out of a nightmare. Lightning was on a bed in the middle of a huddle of nurses and doctors. Fang was sitting beside her, and from the looks of it, Lightning was crushing Fang's hand. But far worse than the purple and blue colour that Fang's hand was turning was the look of abject horror on her face as she looked from Lightning's face to her spread legs.

"I'm going to kill you!" Lightning wailed as one of the nurses urged her to push. "I'm never going to let you touch me again. This is your damn fault! I sweat to the Maker, to Etro, to every damn fal'Cie there ever was… I'm going to skin you alive. I'm going to make you wish that –" Her eyes widened as she spotted Serah. "You!"

Serah froze like a baby dear caught in the eager sights of a pack of rabid gorgonopsids.

"You! You were the one who convinced me it would be a good idea to have kids!" Lightning wailed at Serah as she crushed Fang's hand even more and waved her other hand in Serah's direction. "You said they'd be cute." Another contraction tore through Lightning and she hissed. "Why aren't you the one here giving the birth? Why do I have to be the one screaming my lungs out and why does this have to hurt so damn much?"

Fang grimaced. Her hand had started to go numb a few moments ago, as well as a rather alarming shade of dark purple. "Well, to be fair, Serah is going to be giving birth in a few months and as for the pain thing… you are sort of pushing something the size of a watermelon out of your vagina."

Whack.

"Okay," Fang said slowly, rubbing her jaw. "I probably deserved that." She shot Serah a frantic look. "Help me."

Serah squared her shoulders. Sure, Lightning was currently one of the most terrifying things she'd ever seen, but she was also family. "Okay."

Hoping that her sister wouldn't crush her hand too badly, Serah sat at her sister's other side.

"Okay, Lightning, just breathe. Okay? You and Fang have been going to those classes, right?" Serah started to time her breaths just the way they'd been teaching her in prenatal classes. "Just breathe, it'll be fine." She let out a sigh of relief as both Fang and Lightning started to mimic her breathing. "That's good, that's right. Just breathe."

However, all of Serah's good work was undone as Snow barged in.

"It's all right, sis," Snow shouted. "I'm here. I'll support you too!"

Before he could get any closer, or get a look at Lightning's privates, a plastic jug that was still half full of water caught him full in the face. Snow reeled back, and Serah was silently grateful that Lightning hadn't had anything worse than a plastic jug to throw. It would have been a real shame to have to raise her child alone.

"Get out!" Lightning screamed. "And I am not your sister! Damn it, if you want to live to see your own child get born, you're going stay the hell out of this room!"

X X X

Averia swallowed thickly. "Giving birth sounds scary."

Fang shrugged. "I guess it does." Her expression grew serious. "But trust me, even if it can be a little scary, it's worth it. Every single moment is worth it. Without your mom giving birth, we wouldn't have you, and if it wasn't for me giving birth, Diana wouldn't be with us, so trust me, it's worth it." She gave both Averia and Diana a hug. "Anyway, several hours later…"

X X X

"It's a girl!" one of the doctors shouted. "It's a healthy baby girl!" He sounded almost as relieved as Lightning as the pink haired woman sank back onto the bed. No doubt, he was thinking about how the big metal dragon that was still on the front lawn wouldn't be eating him since he hadn't screwed up.

"Let me hold her," Lightning pleaded as the baby was wiped clean and the umbilical cord cut away. "Please, I need to hold her." The baby girl was placed in her arms and Lightning's eyes grew watery before she started to weep, unable to look away from the little miracle in her arms. "Oh, Fang… oh, Fang, just look at! She's perfect… she's the most beautiful, the most… oh…"

Fang swallowed thickly as she tried to form words. But the words wouldn't come. Her chest felt like it was about to explode. It was like everything in the world had narrowed down to the two people in front of her. Everything she'd ever done, every sin she'd ever committed, every decision she'd ever made – nothing mattered, nothing at all except for the fact that Lightning was there in front of her and she was holding _their baby girl_.

"I… uh…" Fang threw her arms around Lightning and their baby girl. Then she started to cry. Damn it, she didn't think she'd cry, but the tears just wouldn't stop. Their baby girl, their perfect baby girl, had a wisp of pink hair – Lightning's hair, that wonderful pink hair – but her eyes… her eyes were Fang's eyes. They had a baby girl and she had Lightning's hair and Fang's eyes. She laughed softly. What had she ever done to deserve something this good, this perfect in her life? Damn it, she didn't know, but she was going to hold onto this, to protect this, to honour this as long as she lived.

"Never thought I'd see those two bawling their eyes out," Sazh said as he took up a spot just behind Fang. Still, there was a hitch in his voice as he continued. "But this seems like as good a time as any."

The other former l'Cie filed in, but Fang didn't even bother to turn around. Turning around meant letting go of Lightning and their baby girl. "I love you so damn much," Fang whispered into Lightning's ear between sobs. "I just love you so damn much."

Lightning smiled, looking more radiantly beautiful than Fang could ever remember. "I love you too, Fang."

Finally, after what felt like forever, Fang managed to pull away. A little self-conscious now, she scrubbed at her cheeks. "So, you're not going to kill me after all?"

Lightning looked down at the baby girl in her arms. "I'm reconsidering, but only if you're the one giving birth next time."

Fang laughed. "I guess that's fair."

"So," Hope asked. "Have you decided on a name yet?" Despite how horrible the whole thing had seemed it was hard not to be amazed. There was a miniature Fang/Lightning in front of him. If that's wasn't incredible, he didn't know what was.

"Well…" Lightning began.

Fang felt a mischievous smirk tug at her lips. Now that it was all over and Lightning and their baby were just fine, she was starting to feel a little more like her usual self. "Well, I was thinking we could call her 'Claw' seeing as how I'm Fang and everything."

"Claw?" Lightning's eyes narrowed and she scowled ominously at Fang. "We are not calling our daughter Claw." And then the most amazing thing happened. As Lightning's scowl deepened even further, the baby turned and looked at Fang. Only it wasn't a smile the baby gave Fang, it was a scowl, the expression an exact copy of the one Lightning had. Fang could only stare as the baby's eyes narrowed as menacingly as she could manage. She barely even noticed the quite click of a camera as Serah and Vanille shared a giggle.

"She really is ours," Fang said in wonder as the scowl faded from Lightning's face and the rest of the former l'Cie burst out laughing. "But seriously, Lightning and I already had a name picked out." She smiled and gave the baby girl an affectionate kiss on the forehead prompting another scowl. "Averia, her name is Averia."

X X X

"And that," Fang said. "Is how Averia was born." She grinned as Averia scowled at her. Quickly, she gave the girl a kiss on the forehead. "See, you're still scowling even after all this time."

Averia sighed. "I guess, but you shouldn't have been joking around like that. What would you have done if I'd ended being named Claw?"

"Well, I think Claw would be a cool name." Diana made clawing motions with your hands. "You'd be even cooler, Averia, if you were named Claw." She grinned. "Maybe I can call you that from now on. You can be Claw Yun-Farron."

Averia made a face and reached over to pinch one of Diana's cheeks. The younger girl squirmed. "Claw is not a good name. Besides I like my name." She sighed. "And I don't know if we can put all that in my assignment. It sounds a lot like private family stuff."

"Hmmm… maybe you're right." Fang shrugged. "At least you found out how you were born and if you need to know about anything else you can always ask."

"How about me?" Diana asked. "How was I born?"

Fang and Serah shared a look.

"Ask your mom about that one." Serah grinned. "Trust me, it's just as interesting as how your sister was born."

Fang chuckled. "And every bit as traumatic."

X X X

**Author's Notes**

As always I neither own Final Fantasy, nor am I making any money off this.

Technically, this chapter isn't based on a pre-existing story or fable, but I thought I'd put here anyway since it does involve people telling a story. I've wanted to have a chapter on how the girls' were born for a while now and this popped into my head while I was tossing around some ideas for something else. There isn't really that much else I want to say about this chapter, mainly because childbirth is something we can all relate to. We all came from someone, and we've all heard the horror stories. Some of us have even witnessed them.

On the subject of childbirth, I have it on good authority (namely, my mother's) that my own birth was not nearly as traumatic as Averia's since it came via Caesarean. My younger brother, however, took twenty two hours to deliver and has since become the largest of us all, which I suppose is some consolation for how long it took to deliver him. Interestingly, I also have an old picture on my fridge not unlike the one that Averia points out. It shows my brother riding on my back – a feat that would now result in my needing major surgery given the present disparity in size. Ah, how much things change.

On a slightly different note, I have received some inquiries as to updates. These, I am afraid, are behind schedule. I was recently informed by my landlord that I would have to vacate my current residence within a little over three months. I should say, however, that my landlord has been very good to me over the course of my tenancy and has handled this latest matter quite delicately.

Naturally, finding a new place to live has taken some degree of precedence over writing fanfiction. However, I have found a new place and despite being more expensive, it is in a fine location, being close to public transport and other amenities. I will miss my current residence, however. It has not been without its quirks – it is a slightly older residence – but it has been home for some time now, and being home, such quirks become objects of affection rather than disappointment.

I would also like, in this slightly longer than usual author's note, to address an interesting question that I received. I am not normally in the habit of answering questions posed in individual reviews (if you have questions, message me and I am likely to reply), but this one struck me as being especially interesting. The question comes from tlrc who was one of the very first people to review my stories in this fandom. Tlrc asks why I have chosen to write so much about FF XIII when it does not even appear on my favourite games list (in my profile).

The answer has several parts. First, I should say that the list in my profile is not only antiquated, it tends to be based somewhat on overall franchise performance. For example, I can excuse the abysmal performance of Mario and Zelda in recent years because in the past, they were great. The games on my list are the games that, to a large extent, I think of when I think back to certain points in my life. My childhood was quite literally punctuated by video games, of which I would receive two each year (one at Christmas and one on my birthday) up until perhaps my early teens, whereupon I was able to purchase more, provided I saved appropriately (pocket money is a wonderful thing, and doing chores is not nearly as bad as most children make out). Final Fantasy was not one of those two video games that I would receive each year, nor was it one of the video games my friends and I would obsess over and compare notes about during school. Final Fantasy was something else – a diversion, perhaps, or simply something different that I also enjoyed. If anything, my sister (also an author on this site, and the object of constant badgering from me to update her stories) loves Final Fantasy far more than I ever will.

As to why I chose Final Fantasy XIII in particular… simply put, it is because of Lightning. I like her far more than any other protagonist in the Final Fantasy series because of who she is and what she represents. She is, if you will pardon the Western metaphor, the lone rider dusty from a hard day's travel who sets her face against the wind and does what needs to be done simply because she has to, because there is no one else who can or will. Her judgement is not perfect – indeed it is often flawed – but she is willing to make choices when things are hard, especially when they are hard. Some authors have compared Lightning to a jewel, a fine diamond perhaps, shining brightly and proudly despite all the dross and gravel around her. I see things differently. To me, Lightning is a slab of hard granite, not necessarily the most beautiful thing, but strong and firm against all the hard weather that life can summon. There is a beauty in that kind of toughness, the kind of toughness that can hold firm no matter what scars are inflicted, or what wounds are suffered. It is the same kind of magnificence you might see in an old wolf, its face and body scarred by years of protecting its pack. Lightning has seen the worst that life can call forth and she is still there, unbowed, and with her face lifted in defiance. What's not to like?

I will leave my musings there, since these author's notes have already grown quite voluminous. I might add too, that the wonderful feedback and commentary that I have received from this fandom have also helped sway me toward it. It is a wonderful thing to write, and having others appreciate your writing only makes it more wonderful.

As always, I appreciate feedback. Reviews and comments are welcome.


	7. Chapter 7

**Urban Legend**

Serah finished drying off the last of the dishes and took a moment to dry her hands. She didn't have to do the dishes – they had a dishwasher – but there was just something soothing about it. Perhaps it was the memories, albeit vague, of days when she'd been too short to reach the sink properly. She'd stood in the doorway of a kitchen that was now long gone and watched as her mother and older sister washed the dishes. She'd felt left out, but Lightning had noticed her and dragged over chair so that she could help.

Of course, Serah had another, less sentimental, reason for trying to stay away from the living room for a few more minutes. Normally, she would have loved to spend time with her daughter and nieces, but right now those same lovely children were engaged in a life and death battle. They were playing their latest video game against Lightning and to put it bluntly, they were getting slaughtered. Loud were the girls' cries of lamentation, and terrible was their wailing.

Apparently, Lightning was every bit as good with video game guns as real life guns. Sure, Lightning could have let the girls win, but Serah knew that they'd never accept that. The girls wanted to beat Lightning when Lightning was trying her hardest to win. However, they didn't seem to be having much luck. It could have been worse though. If it had been Vanille beating them, there would have been a great deal more cackling. Knowing her sister, Lightning was probably killing all of them with a look of almost casual disinterest.

Suddenly, the screams of frustration coming from the living room were replaced by cries of abject horror. Serah took one step toward the living room and then stopped. Did she really want to go in there? A lazy smile crossed her lips. She probably should. It wouldn't be fair to leave Lightning on her own in the face of this latest disaster. Besides, it might be funny.

When she got to the living room, she found Lightning reading a newspaper as the three girls clustered around the video game console.

"Why?" Diana wailed, almost in tears. "Why did this have to happen?"

Claire pressed the power button over and over again. "It's not turning back on. It's… it's dead." She dropped onto her knees. "Dead."

"Did you use your powers to kill it?" Averia asked. In the space of five seconds, she'd gone from glaring at the machine to glaring at Lightning. "Because that would be cheating, and you said you wouldn't cheat."

"My powers?" Lightning met Averia's glare evenly. As ferocious as the girl's expression was, Lightning had practically invented that look. "It probably happened because we've been playing so much."

Serah walked over to the girls. Diana had thrown her arms around the console and was rocking back and forth. "Diana, let go of that."

"But it's dead, Aunt Serah!" Diana clutched the console harder. "And there's nothing we can do."

"Dead?" Serah tilted her head to one side. "What do you mean?"

Diana sniffled and then put the console back onto the table next to the television. "Look." On the front of the console, there was a circle of glowing red lights. Total hardware failure. "It's the Crimson Circle of Doom. It's dead for sure."

Claire nodded. "And we were just about to beat Aunt Lightning. Just five more seconds and… and…" She threw her arms around Diana. "Then the Circle of Doom appeared, and I tried everything to make it work again, but it's… it's dead."

Serah winced. No wonder the three girls were so upset. To be so close to victory only to see it snatched away. "Well, it looks like you four won't be playing any more video games today." She sighed. "I'll take it back to the store tomorrow and see if they can fix it."

"Can we take it to the store now?" Claire asked hopefully.

Serah shook her head. "It's a weekend, Claire, the store is probably closed at this time. We'll take it in tomorrow." She looked over at Lightning and grinned. "You got lucky."

"Lucky?" Lightning's lips curled. "Not really. The girls were just about to walk into my trap."

"Your trap?" Averia's eyes narrowed. "What do you mean? We had you pinned down in that building. We were just about to come in and get you."

Lightning smirked, and Serah bit back a giggle. Even if Lightning would never admit it, Fang had rubbed off on her. "I had proximity mines on the doors, and even if you dodged those, I had the building rigged to explode too." She shrugged. "Even if we all died, it would be okay. I'd lose one point for getting killed, but I'd get three points for killing all of you."

Averia made a disgusted sound. "I should have expected something like that."

"You're being mean, mom!" Diana cried. "We're your children. You have to let us shoot you." She paused. "In video games, I mean." She scowled and waved one fist around. "When mommy gets back, we're going to play again, but she has to be on our team. We'll get you for sure then."

"Will you now?" Lightning grinned. "Your mommy is pretty tough in real life, but in video games she's got a lot to learn." She smiled faintly, eyes soft with longing. "Besides, she'll probably be tired when she gets back from exploring in the mountains with your Uncle Snow and those researchers."

Diana frowned. "Then maybe we'll get Aunt Vanille. She's pretty good video games." Her eyes widened. "Maybe we could call Aunt Vanille to come over now. I bet she could fix everything."

Serah winced. Not only was Vanille busy looking over some of the Guardian Corps's newest equipment with Hope, but knowing the red head, she'd probably turn the video game console into some kind of giant killer robot. Of course, Diana would probably love that. "No, I don't think so. She's very busy working with your Uncle Hope right now, so we shouldn't bother her."

"Then what are we going to do now?" Claire asked. She picked up the remote control for the television and flicked through the channels. "There's nothing good on, and I'm not sleepy yet."

Serah pursed her lips and then smiled. "I remember when me and your Aunt Lightning were young, there was something we used to do whenever we got bored." She smiled. "We could tell scary stories."

"Scary stories?" Serah grinned as Claire perked up. Her daughter loved to prove how brave she was – she was Snow's daughter after all – and scary stories would be ideal for that. "You and Aunt Lightning used to tell scary stories when you were younger?"

Serah nodded. "As a matter of fact, we did. Actually, we didn't really play video games that much." All three girls looked horrified beyond belief. "And so sometimes, when we got bored, we'd tell scary stories. It was pretty fun."

"Do we have to?" Averia grumbled. Without anyone else noticing, Diana had managed to climb onto her back. "If we tell scary stories, Diana's going to end up sneaking into my bed again."

Diana growled and poked Averia in the cheek. "I don't sneak into your bed because I'm scared! It's because it gets cold at night, and you're cuddly."

Serah hid a smile behind one hand as Averia's cheeks flushed. Clearly, the girl did not like it when Diana said things like that out loud. Personally, Serah thought it was adorable. Averia could be very prickly, but when push came to shove, Diana almost always got her way. It was kind of like her and Lightning, actually.

"Well, what about the last time you had a nightmare?" Averia said.

Diana tried to get one arm around Averia's neck, but the older girl was ready and grabbed hold of Diana's hands. "I didn't have a nightmare. I was just cold."

"That sounds familiar, doesn't it, Serah?" Lightning drawled.

Serah looked over at her sister. Lightning's expression was serious, but her eyes were filled with mirth. Trust her sister to remember something like that. She crossed her arms over her chest and looked away. "I don't know what you're talking about."

Claire went from helping Averia pry Diana off her back to staring at Serah. "Mommy? What's Aunt Lightning talking about?"

Serah was about to say something, but stopped when she saw the small, but genuine smile on Lightning's face. It wasn't often that Lightning teased her, and when she'd been younger, she'd absolutely hated it. But now, after everything they'd been through, she didn't mind it so much. They'd gone through a lot to rebuild their battered relationship, and if Lightning wanted to have a little bit of fun at her expense then that was fine. Besides, it wasn't like she didn't have her own mental drawer full of embarrassing stories involving the older woman.

"That's right, Claire," Lightning said, still smiling that small smile. "When your mommy was younger, we used to tell scary stories. She would act all brave in front of our parents, but when it was time to sleep, she'd always sneak into my bed." Lightning chuckled. "She used to say it was cold."

Serah scowled. "Well, it was."

"Really?" Lightning raised one eyebrow. "I seem to remember that it was summer a lot of the times you did that. And you never had any problems about the cold during winter, not unless we were telling stories."

Serah huffed and then looked over at Diana for support. Averia and Claire had managed to pry the girl off, and now she was sitting on the floor between them. "They don't know what they're talking about do they?"

Diana's eyes widened before she nodded eagerly. On her own, people might not listen to her, but if Aunt Serah agreed with her, then everyone had to believe her. "No, they don't. People like us never get scared, we just get cold sometimes."

"It's partly their fault too, isn't it," Serah added thoughtfully. "Since they're so cuddly."

Diana nodded seriously. "Definitely." She threw her arms around Averia and squeezed. "See? Averia is really, really cuddly." Averia squawked and tried to pry Diana off, but Diana wouldn't budge. "But maybe…" She let go of Averia and latched onto Claire. Diana gave Claire a thoughtful squeeze and rubbed her cheek on Claire's arm. "Hmm… Claire's pretty cuddly too, actually." She shifted and hopped onto Claire's lap. "She might even be cuddlier than Averia –"

"She is not cuddlier than me!" Averia growled before she reached over and pulled Diana back onto her own, much more comfortable, lap.

Silence. Even Lightning seemed a little surprised.

Looking around, Averia realised what she'd just done. Looking more like a tomato than a girl, Averia did her best to glare. "What? I'm just stating a fact."

Claire's eyes gleamed and Serah felt her lips twitch. Her daughter might inherit a lot of her mannerisms from Snow, but this mischievousness was definitely something that came from her. "Really?" Claire leaned over and gave Averia a sly smile. "Because you sounded pretty jealous."

"I was not." Averia looked away. "But I guess… if Diana wants to cuddle you that's okay. You're our sister too." Claire looked taken aback for a moment, and Serah and Lightning shared a look. Trust Averia to say something like that and not really understand how big a deal it was. "But you need to be careful. Diana's hair is spiky and sometimes she punches you in her sleep."

"Hey," Diana said, sitting up straight and nearly poking Averia in the eye with her hair. "I do not punch people in my sleep."

"Yes, you do." Averia made a face. "You even tried to choke me once."

Serah laughed softly. "Anyway," she said, gently pulling Diana off Averia's lap before the two sisters could get into another argument. "What do you think? Should we tell scary stories?"

"Definitely." Claire nodded firmly. "I won't get scared at all."

Averia scowled. "Fine."

Diana was the last to reply. "I guess." She looked around. "But nothing too scary. Not that I'd get scared or anything."

Serah smiled. "All right then." She got to her feet. "Now, just wait here a second. If we're going to do this, we're going to do it right." She bit her lip. "Now, where did I put that flashlight?"

It took her a few minutes to find a flashlight, but by then the girls were ready to start. All three of them were sitting on the couch with Diana in the middle. The little girl had a firm grip on both Averia and Claire. Lightning was sitting slightly to one side on one of the chairs, and Serah dragged another into position before she turned off the lights.

"Do we have to turn off the lights?" Diana whined. "It's sc… I mean, it's dark."

Serah laughed. "Yes, we do. It's part of telling scary stories." She felt her way back to her chair and then turned on the flashlight, careful to hold it under her chin for maximum effect.

"Ah, a monster!" Diana screamed. "Mom, help!"

Serah laughed and reached over to pat Diana on the head. "It's just me, Diana." She looked over at Lightning. "And don't worry. If there are any monsters, your mom will definitely be able to handle them." She paused. "Now, are you all ready?"

They all nodded, although Serah could have sworn that Lightning rolled her eyes a little. That was understandable. Given what the other woman had gone up against in the past, it wasn't likely that Serah could come up with a story that could scare her.

"All right then." Serah lowered her voice slightly in a bid to sound more threatening. "This is a special story, a real story. In fact, it happened to a friend of a friend of mine." She smiled. "And trust me, it's really scary." She chuckled. "It happened back in Bodhum, back when Cocoon was still in the sky." The girls' eyes widened and Serah nodded, grinning evilly. "That's right, girls, this story happened in the same Bodhum where me and Lightning grew up."

"Back then, Bodhum was a really beautiful place." Serah closed her eyes. Even if Cocoon had been built for a terrible purpose, Bodhum really had been something. "There were lots of wonderful beaches, and the ocean used to sparkle like a jewel in the sun. Trust me, there were lots of wonderful places in Cocoon, but Bodhum was the best. Every summer, lots of people used to go there just to swim, and the fireworks were better than anywhere else."

"I wish we could go to the beach," Diana said.

"When it's warmer, we will," Lightning promised. "Although your mommy has to promise to behave."

Serah grinned. She'd have to ask Lightning about that later. Knowing Fang, however, it probably had to do with her hands, and her inability to keep them off Lightning for any extended period of time. "Anyway, back in those days, there was a young woman named Hime. Now, Hime was smart and pretty, and she had a lot of friends. But what she wanted most in the world was to meet her special someone, the person she could spend the rest of her life with."

"That's lame," Averia said flatly. "She should go off and have adventures or something."

"Now, now," Serah said. "You'll understand better when you're older. One day, Hime met a young man named Frost, and he was very different from her. Hime was short but Frost was tall. Hime followed all of the rules, but Frost broke them. However, even though they were very different, it wasn't long before Hime fell in love with Frost. You see, even if Frost was a little rough around the edges, he had a very good heart, and he always tried to help other people. He was like a hero, doing his best to make the world a better place."

Averia frowned. "This is supposed to be a scary story. When is it going to get good?"

"Shh…" Claire said. "It has to get good soon. I bet Frost was actually some kind of creepy killer in disguise or something."

Serah giggled. "No, Frost was not a creepy serial killer in disguise. Like I said, he was actually quite heroic. Unfortunately though, Hime's family didn't like him. In fact, they didn't want her to have anything to do with him. They wouldn't even let her talk to him. But because Hime loved Frost so much, she continued to see him, but in secret."

"During one of their secrets meetings, Frost and Hime decided to drive around Bodhum. The weather was beautiful at that time of the year, and since it had been a while since they'd seen each other, they were very happy to be alone together." Serah smiled wistfully. "Frost took Hime up onto a deserted cliff overlooking the sea and –"

"And then he pushed her over the edge and she went splat!" Claire shouted. "Cool."

Lightning stifled a laugh and Serah shot her a frown. "That's not what happened." She sighed. "Anyway, they were sitting in Frost's car talking and listening to music on the radio when suddenly the music was interrupted by a special bulletin. She paused for effect. "It turned out that a dangerous criminal – a serial killer – had escaped from the Guardian Corps headquarters in Bodhum and was on the loose. Not only was the killer crazy, but instead of his right hand he had… a hook." And just for emphasis, Serah curled the fingers of her right hand and waved it around.

"A hook?" Diana grinned. "Awesome."

"But wouldn't it get stuck in people when he stabbed them?" Averia asked. "A hook doesn't sound very practical."

Lightning nodded. "That's right. If you want to stab people, a knife would be much better than a hook."

Serah was hard-pressed not to roll her eyes. She loved her sister, she really did, but there was something a little strange about discussing how best to stab people with a nine-year old girl. "When Hime heard the news, she wanted to go home right away, but since it had been so long since they'd been able to spend time together, Frost wanted to stay. Eventually, they decided to stay a little bit longer, but when they tried to leave, the car wouldn't start."

"Was it the hook guy?" Claire asked. "I bet he was right there just waiting to hook everyone to death." She waved her right hand around. "Or maybe Frost was the hook guy!"

Serah chuckled. "No, Frost was not the hook guy. Since the car wouldn't start, Frost wanted to go outside to check the engine, but Hime begged him to stay inside the car. What if the crazy killer was out there? But Frost was big and strong, so he was sure that he would be fine. He was just about to get out of the car when they heard a sound. It was the sound of something metal tapping the back of the car."

Diana shivered and tugged Averia and Claire closer to her.

"Tap, tap." Serah giggled. "Tap, tap. That's the sound they heard. But when they turned around there was no one there. Then it came from the side of the car: tap, tap. Tap, tap. By then, Hime was really scared, but instead of being scared, Frost got really angry. He got out of the car to fight the crazy killer, but instead he found…" Serah paused as Diana buried her face in Averia's side. "Nothing."

"What?" Claire blurted. "How could there be nothing?"

Serah smiled. "After that, Hime and Frost felt a lot better. Maybe it had just been their imagination. But when Frost went to the front of the car to check the engine, Hime saw something move in the shadows nearby. Before she could shout a warning, someone leapt out of the bushes. It was… the man with a hook!"

"Ah!" Diana screamed.

Serah formed her right hand into a claw and swung it through the air, only inches from the girls' faces. "The man with the hook attacked Frost, stabbing him and again and again. Inside the car, Hime was screaming and screaming, but she was too afraid to get out and help. Somehow, Frost managed to fight off the man with a hook, and he pulled Hime out of the car." Serah paused. "Frost told Hime that they had to get back to Bodhum. If they could just make it there, then they would be safe."

"So they ran," Serah said. "They ran along the road back toward Bodhum, and all the while, they could hear footsteps behind them as the man with a hook got closer and closer and closer until finally…" She clawed the air again. "He got Frost."

Diana had wrapped her arms around Averia and was using her legs to pull Claire closer.

"Hime heard Frost scream, but he told her to run, so she did." Serah cackled evilly. "She ran and ran and ran until finally she could see the lights of Bodhum only a few hundred yards away. She was safe. She would live. And then she saw someone on the road ahead of her. She ran even faster then, screaming for help. But when she reached that person she noticed something horrible. That person… had a hook for a right hand! It was the killer!" Serah chuckled softly. "And after that, Hime and Frost were never seen again."

Diana shuddered. "That's horrible." She was about to say something else when Averia put one hand on her shoulder. "Ah, save me! It's the hook man!"

Lightning sighed and scooped Diana up into her arms. The girl burrowed into Lightning's embrace, and shot her sister a glare. "It's just a story, all right, Diana."

Diana looked around, the shadows in the room suddenly much scarier than they had been only a few minutes ago. "But Aunt Serah said it was true. She said it happened to a friend of a friend of hers!"

Lightning's lips twitched. "That's not exactly true." Her eyes narrowed and she gave Serah a keen look. "Actually, it happened to her."

Diana's eyes widened. "Really?"

"Oh, yes," Lightning said dryly as Serah stifled a laugh. "You could even say that I was the man with a hook."

"Ah!" Diana screamed and hurled herself at Serah. "Help!"

Lightning sighed and turned the lights back on before she walked over to Diana. "Look, I probably should have worded that better." She held out both her hands so that Diana could see that they were completely normally. "See, no hooks, just hands." Diana studied her hands for a moment before calming down. "The story your Aunt Serah is based on something that really happened, but she exaggerated a few things."

"Exaggerated?" Serah grinned. As she'd expected, her sister had recognised the story for what it was. "I wouldn't say I exaggerated that much."

"Really?" Lightning chuckled. "All right, girls, why don't I tell you what really happened?"

The girls nodded.

"Serah was right, the story really did take place in Bodhum back when Cocoon was still in the sky." Lightning's jaw clenched. "But the young woman's name wasn't Hime, it was Serah. And the young man wasn't Frost, he was Snow." She looked at Claire. "Yes, the story was about your parents." She scowled. "Serah was very popular then, but I never had to worry about her finding a boyfriend. Not until she met Snow." She paused and had to force the next few words out. "Claire, your father is a good man, but back then he was… troublesome. In fact, I even ran into him a few times as an officer of the Guardian Corps."

"Really?" Claire asked. "Cool." In her mind, her father had gone up a few notches. Not only was he a hero, but he'd even gone up against her Aunt Lightning and lived to tell the tale. That was like beating up the bogeyman.

"I didn't really like him much back then, so I didn't want Serah going out with him." Lightning sighed. "He's much better now though. Still, that day, I had to work a longer shift than usual. While I was gone, Serah snuck out to meet with him." She scowled. "When I got back and found out that Serah was gone, I was… unhappy."

All of the girls shuddered. An unhappy Lightning was pretty terrifying. Diana and Averia had seen firsthand how quick their normally proud mommy was to grovel when their mom got really mad. Of course, there were other times when their mommy got their mom mad on purpose. When that happened, they usually just went to go watch television, because their mom and their mommy would go into their room to argue and not come out for ages. But they always came out much happier, so it was okay.

"I was worried about Serah, so I called her." Lightning grinned. "I believe my exact words were: Come home right now, or I will come and get you."

Serah laughed. She could still remember getting that phone call. It had been absolutely terrifying. It was like Lightning could just sense when she was breaking the rules, that and the fact that she knew that Lightning really would come and get her. "To be fair, you made it sound like a death threat."

Lightning frowned. "I needed to make a point, Serah, and nothing else was going to work."

Serah winced. Their relationship had been in a bad place back then, not that the girls needed to know that. If she and Lightning had their way, the girls would never, ever have to muddle through the same problems they had.

"But how did you find her, mom?" Averia asked. "There had to be lots of places she could have been."

"I bet she used her mom powers." Diana frowned. "Or maybe it was her big sister powers."

"Big sister powers?" Serah asked. What exactly were those supposed to be?

Diana nodded as though it was the most obvious thing in the world. "It's like how Averia always knows when I'm about to steal some of her candy." She shrugged. "Or like how I can never prank Claire without getting caught later, although I guess those are really big cousin powers."

"I see." Serah grinned. It was nice to know that Averia and Diana though of Claire as a sister. "It might have been that."

Lightning had always known when Serah was in pain, but during those dark years, she just hadn't known what to do about it. The reverse was true as well, and during those years, they'd circled each other almost like enemies. To make matters worse, because of how well they'd known each other, they'd been able to do far too much damage. There were still times when Serah thought about the things she'd said and done – she'd been young and stupid, and she'd hadn't realise just how much Lightning had given up to try and give her a normal life. That wasn't to say that Lightning was blameless – the older woman had a stubborn streak a mile wide, but they were sisters and they should have done better.

Some of her feelings must have shown on her face, because Claire came over to take her hand. "Mommy?"

"Oh." Serah blinked. "Uh…"

"It's all right," Lightning said softly. "Your mommy is just thinking of some old things – things that are just fine now." She smiled. "But no, it wasn't big sister powers or anything like that. It was just a matter of thinking logically. I knew that Serah and Snow wouldn't go anywhere that I could easily find them, which ruled out most of the usual places for teenagers to go. However, I also knew that Serah liked to be near the ocean and that she liked places where she could see the stars." Lightning smirked. "That only left one place, and when I got there, they were already… occupied."

"Occupied?" Claire frowned. "What do you mean?"

Serah gave her sister and scowl and blushed. What Lightning meant was that she and Snow had been busy making out. "We were talking, Claire, that's all."

"Really?" Averia asked. "You weren't kissing or anything?"

Serah shook her head. "Of course not. We were just talking." The exact truth could wait until the girls were older – a lot older.

"Then what about the car?" Claire asked. "Why wouldn't it start?"

Serah chuckled. "All right, Lightning, let me take over from here." She grinned. "Well…"

X X X

Serah pulled away from Snow, her cheeks flushed. They hadn't really done much more than kiss, but already, she was finding it hard to think straight. It was a good thing that Snow had never pressured her to do anything more – despite the way he looked sometimes, he was actually quite a gentleman – because she wasn't sure if she could have said no.

"I should, uh, go home now." Serah dragged in a deep breath. "My sister is already mad at me, I don't want to make it worse."

Snow nodded slowly, and Serah was pleased to see he looked a little dazed. It was nice to know she wasn't the only one who found it hard to think when they were kissing. "You probably should –"

Thud.

Something slammed into the hood of the car and the car's headlights went out.

"What was that?" Serah whispered. "Snow?"

Snow's eyes narrowed as he tried to start the car. "It's dead. Something must have happened to the engine." He looked at Serah. "Stay in here, I'm going to take a look."

"But Snow…" Serah looked out the window. It was pitch black outside. "What if there's someone out there?"

"I'll be fine," Snow replied. His voice softened, and he lifted one hand to cup Serah's cheek. "It'll be okay, Serah. I can take care of the both of us. Now, just wait here and –"

Smash.

The windshield came apart in a shower of glass. A pair of gloved hands reached in and grabbed Snow by the lapel of his coat. There was a snarl and Snow was pulled right out of the car.

"Snow!" Serah screamed. "Snow!"

There was another snarl before Snow cried out. Maker, what was happening out there? Serah fumbled for her phone. She had to call Lightning. Whoever was out there was… was doing something to Snow, and Serah wasn't stupid enough to think she could intervene. If they were strong enough to overpower Snow, she wouldn't stand a chance. But Lightning would be strong enough. Out in the darkness, she heard Snow shout something only for his words to turn into a pained groan.

"Come on, come on!" Serah wailed as she dialled her sister's number. "Pick up, Lightning!"

And then the strangest thing happened. A phone started ringing – right outside the car.

It took a moment for Serah to realise what that meant. But when she did, her terror turned into raw fury. Her sister was out there beating the crap out of her boyfriend. Her eyes narrowed, and she put her phone down. This was just too much.

With a cry of rage, Serah shoved open the car door and ran toward the sounds of the fighting. As her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she could just make out Snow's tall figure. He was backing away, hands held up in a defensive position as a smaller, slimmer figure stalked toward him.

"Hold on a second, Lightning," Snow said. "I think there's been a bit of a misunderstanding."

"You're a dead man," Lightning growled. "A dead, dead man."

Serah took a deep breath. "Run, Snow!" she shouted. "Run!" And then she hurled herself onto her sister's back.

If it had been a regular fight, Serah wouldn't have lasted five seconds. Her sister was one of the deadliest people Serah knew, but this wasn't a regular fight, and even if they didn't get along that well anymore, she knew that Lightning would never hit her. So instead, Lightning was forced to stumble around in the dark with Serah clinging onto her back as tightly as she could.

"Get off me, Serah!" Lightning roared. "Right this instant!"

"No!" Serah shouted back. "I'm not going to let you kill my boyfriend!"

"He is not your boyfriend!" Lightning growled. "I forbid it!"

"You can't!" Serah screamed. "It's my life, and I want Snow to be my boyfriend!"

Finally, Lightning managed to pull Serah off. There was a click before a flashlight came on. Lightning took a look around before she pointed the flashlight at Serah. "It looks like he got away." Her eyes narrowed. "Don't look so happy. We're going home and then we're going to talk."

Serah scowled. Their 'talk' would probably involve a great deal of yelling. "Fine." She looked away. "Are we going to walk back or are we going to take Snow's car back?"

"I've got my velocycle parked nearby, we can use that." Lightning shrugged. "Besides, Snow's car won't be going anywhere."

Lightning stalked back to Snow's car and Serah's eyes widened as her sister pulled her gun blade out of the hood of the car. The weapon had been imbedded almost hilt deep. No wonder the car hadn't been working properly.

"Did you just kill a car with your gun blade?" Serah asked incredulously.

"It was safer than using bullets. I couldn't risk hitting you." Lightning's eyes narrowed. "I also didn't want to have my gun blade with me when I was dealing with Snow. I might actually have killed him then." She sighed. "And no, Serah, I wasn't actually going to kill him."

"It sure sounded like it," Serah grumbled. Only her sister could think of stabbing the engine of a car and dragging her boyfriend out through the windshield as the less extreme option. "Fine, let's just go home."

X X X

Serah grinned. "And that's what really happened."

"Wow." Diana looked at her mom and giggled. She wasn't scared, not anymore. "You're way scarier than the hook man, mom." She smiled and gave Lightning a hug. "But it's okay, we love you anyway."

Serah laughed at the uncomfortable look on Lightning's face. "Uh, sure."

Averia smiled. "Maybe next Halloween you could go as the hook man. I think it would be way better than dressing up as Aunt Serah, she's not very scary at all." She gave Serah an apologetic look. "No offence."

"None taken." Serah laughed. "So, do you want to hear another story or…" She reached for one of the couch cushions. "Would you like to do something else?" With that she whacked Lightning on the head.

In a flash, the girls had each grabbed a cushion.

Lightning stood slowly and reached for her own cushion. "You're pretty brave picking a fight with me, Serah. Don't think I'll go easy on you just because you're my sister." She smirked. "But I'll let you have the girls – you'll need them."

Serah grinned. "Fine." She pointed at Lightning with her cushion. "Get her!"

The battle was on.

X X X

Vanille skipped over to the front door of Serah's house and used her spare key to open it. She'd just finished looking over some new equipment with Hope, and the pair of them had decided to drop by Serah's house to see how everyone was going. As she stepped into the corridor, she paused for a moment. She could hear the sounds of fighting coming from the living room.

"What's that?" Hope asked as he stopped beside her.

"Sounds like a pillow fight," Vanille said. "Let's go take a look."

And it was a pillow fight. Lightning was standing in the middle of the living room, a couch cushion in one hand, the other hand formed into a hook. The others were circling her, trying to land blows with their own cushions, but Lightning was too fast, too fluid for them to lay a hand on her. In quick succession, she whacked Serah across the head, clubbed Claire over the back, and then jabbed Averia in the stomach. That left just Diana, and the little girl took a horrified step back as Lightning advanced, her hook-like hand held out in front of her.

"Not the hook man!" Diana screamed, flailing wildly with her cushion. "Stay away!"

"Hah!" Lightning grinned as she snatched Diana up in her arms. "There is no escaping the hook man!"

"Uh, guys," Vanille said as Lightning continued to poke Diana in the side with her hook-hand. "What exactly are you doing?"

X X X

**Author's Notes**

As always, I neither own Final Fantasy, nor am I making any money off of this.

It's been a while since I've updated this story, but unlike Ordinary Heroes, I need to be a bit more selective about the chapters I include since they do need to have a story. That said, it is coming close to Halloween, and what better way to celebrate than to have someone tell an urban legend? Naturally, Lightning actually is an urban legend.

For anyone that isn't aware, the story that Serah told – and which Lightning unwittingly played out in real life – is based on the generic crazy escaped killer with a hook for a hand urban legend. There are many variants of this particular urban legend, so it wasn't hard to twist it around to fit my purposes. Of course, it was also quite fun to have Lightning go into an overprotective rampage. Really, I can't wait for the girls to start dating. Anyone they go out with will have to contend with (at the very least) a high-ranking Guardian Corps officer and a legendary Yun warrior. Just look at what happened to Hope when he set his sights on Vanille (see Ordinary Heroes for this).

As an aside, someone asked what kind of relationship Diana and Averia have with Claire. As this chapter shows, they think of each other as sisters. Sure, they're not sister by blood, but that doesn't really matter to them. It's very similar to the way that Fang views Serah, and the way that Lightning views Vanille (at least in this story). Anyone picking a fight with one of the girls might as well just pick a fight with all three of them. That isn't to say they don't argue – they do, a lot, as previous chapters will show – but when push comes to shove they will absolutely stick by each other. What I find ironic, however, is that in terms of appearance, Claire and Averia actually look more like sisters than Averia and Diana.

With regards to the names that Serah used, the name 'Serah' actually means princess, and in Japanese 'Hime' is the word for princess. The link between Frost and Snow should be fairly obvious. Also, it could be argued that the chapters in this story often contain a moral (like most fairytales). This chapter also contains a moral: never, ever try and date a member of Lightning's family without permission. She will find you, kill your car, and drag you through a broken windshield. Why? Because she's awesome like that.

As always, I appreciate feedback. Reviews and comments are welcome.


	8. Chapter 8

**Sleeping Beauty**

Lightning groaned and trudged the last few steps to the front door of her house. Normally, she wouldn't have looked twice at the doormat, but right now it looked very tempting. Maybe she could just ring the doorbell and lie down there until either one of the girls or Fang came out to get her. She sighed. As tempting as a little sleep sounded right now, her pride would never survive the beating it would take if her kids ended up dragging her through the door, not to mention Fang would never let her hear the end of it. So, despite the exhaustion that seemed to fill every iota of her being, she dragged her keys out of her pocket and opened the door.

"I'm home," she croaked.

Hardly a second had passed before there was a burst of excited laughter from the living room followed by the rapid drumbeat of small feet across the floor. A moment later, Diana appeared, her big, blue eyes filled with delight.

"Mom!" Diana took three steps and was about to hurl herself at Lightning when Averia rounded the corner and threw her arms around the smaller girl's midsection.

"No jumping at mom today," Averia said as Diana struggled to free herself. "Can't you see how tired she is?"

Lightning gave Averia a grateful nod. Normally, she wouldn't have minded getting an armful of hyperactive Diana. In fact, it was usually something she looked forward to. But today, she wasn't sure she could handle it. Her entire week had been one disaster after another. First one of her officers had called in with the flu and then another and another until before she knew it, she was leading almost all of the local patrols personally. Combined with all the work she had coming in from Guardian Corps Headquarters, she must worked at least a hundred hours over the past week.

"Are you okay, mom?" Diana asked as she finally managed to squirm out of Averia's grasp. "You do look a little tired." She pointed at Lightning's head and gasped. "And your hair is all droopy!"

Lightning lifted one hand to her head and winced. Now that Diana mentioned it, she really couldn't remember the last time she'd been able to wash her hair properly. "I know." She forced a smile onto her face. "So, how about you tell me what you and your sister are doing, and what do you think mommy is making for dinner?"

Diana gave her one last suspicious look and then grabbed her by the arm, tugging her toward the living room. "Come on, mom. I'll show you, and don't worry, mommy's been in the kitchen for a while now and nothing has caught fire!"

When they got to the living room, Lightning took one look at the plastic blocks scattered everywhere and sighed. Getting upset about the mess would take too much energy – energy she simply didn't have at the moment. Besides, the blocks were the girls' latest obsession. One of Diana's friends had gotten a set of plastic blocks for a birthday present, and after seeing them in action, Diana had immediately demanded some of her own.

Fang had argued with the Diana for precisely thirty seconds before caving. Honestly, the girl had Fang wrapped around her finger, even if the huntress would never admit it. In short order, Averia had been dragged into things as well, but to everyone's surprise, Averia wasn't just good at making things with the blocks, she was great. The older girl might not be able to draw a picture to save her life, and her snowman construction skills were far from spectacular, but the blocks seemed to be right up her alley.

The girls had started by enthusiastically following the instructions on the first box of blocks to make their own castle. However, the resulting structure had been somewhat less than impressive, and after pronouncing it as the 'single lamest thing in the universe', they had quickly moved on to building their own things. And when one box hadn't been enough, they'd ruthlessly exploited Fang's weakness for fake tears and pouting to get another nine. Probably the only reason that Lightning hadn't strangled Fang was because the blocks had to be at least a little bit educational, and they did get the girls away from the television.

Armed with a seemingly endless supply of blocks, Diana and Averia had moved on from building simple things like castles and spaceships, to using the little motors and gears that came with the more advanced sets of blocks to build remote control cars and robots. Lightning had actually found it quite intriguing to watch the pair at work, although there was something bittersweet about it too. She and Serah had played with blocks when they were little, but once things had started to go bad, there hadn't been time to play around anymore. They'd had to grow up, or at least, Lightning had.

"So," Lightning asked, picking her way through a maze of plastic tanks and robots. "What are you making now?"

Diana grinned. "Averia came up with it." She pointed at something on the coffee table. "We're making a gun blade."

Lightning's eyes widened and despite her tiredness, she found herself sitting on the couch and examining the device more closely. At the moment, the blocks had been put together to resemble a sword, one that bore a great deal of resemblance to hers.

"Does it transform?" Lightning asked.

Averia scowled. "Sort of."

"Sort of?" Lightning started the transformation sequence. There was a whir of plastic and the gun blade began to transform, only to jam about halfway through. Still, she could already make out the general form of the gun, and with a few additions it probably could go all the way… Dear Maker, her daughters had almost reverse engineered a gun blade. She didn't know if she should be pleased or terrified. "This is really good. You're almost there. Does it shoot?"

Diana took the gun blade from Lightning's hands and set it back down on the coffee table. "Not yet." She picked up a plastic rifle that was lying on the ground. "But this one does." She pointed it at the wall and fired. A plastic block hurtled out of the barrel with surprising force and bounced off the far wall of living room. "See?"

Lightning nodded and made a mental note to make sure that Diana didn't bring the weapon to school. Knowing Diana, she would use it shoot at any birds she thought were looking at Mr Cuddles funny, which happened to be just about all of them.

"Evening there, colonel."

Lightning looked up as Fang walked in. The other woman gave her a lazy grin, and Lightning felt a smile tug at her lips as she took in the bright pink apron that the huntress wore. It was a gift from Serah, and although the colour was just a tad ridiculous on Fang, Lightning certainly wasn't going to complain about how tight across the chest it was. After all, Fang did have a very nice chest – one that she hadn't had much time to look at or touch over the past week.

"Hard week?" Fang asked as she leaned over to give Lightning a quick kiss on the lips. Anything longer and the kids would probably try and shoot her with the rifle they'd made. "Please tell me it's not going to be like this next week."

Lightning gave a sigh of relief. "Actually, it should be much better next week. Most of my officers have recovered, and I'll be taking Monday and Tuesday off." She leaned back and closed her eyes. "If the world decides to end on Monday, it's up to Hope to fix it."

Fang laughed and gave Lightning a pat on the head. "Well, just lie back and relax. I've got a traditional Yun roast cooking the kitchen." Lightning's eyes snapped open and Fang smirked. "And no, I'm not going to burn down the kitchen. Sure, the microwave hates me, and I'm convinced the dishwasher is going to try and kill me in my sleep, but roasting is something I can do. You just stay here and relax." She looked at the plastic weaponry scattered through the living room. "Or not. You know, I'm just glad they haven't tried to build a plastic Bahamut."

Diana and Averia looked at one another.

"You know, mommy," Averia said slowly. "That's actually a good idea. We already know to build a dragon, so we'd just have to make it bigger, and I'm pretty sure we could get the arms and legs to work…"

Fang ignored the dirty look Lightning gave her. The other woman was probably just annoyed they hadn't thought of building a plastic Odin. "It'll be about another forty-five minutes. Do you want me to get you anything?"

"No." Lightning paused. "Actually, how about a cup of coffee?"

Fang shook her head. "Not a chance, love. You've been living off coffee all week. I'll get you some water instead."

Fang came back with a bottle of water and then headed back into the kitchen as Lightning stretched out on the couch. She kicked her boots off and lay back, watching out of the corner of one eye as the girls continued to work on the gun blade, their voices rising and falling as they argued good naturedly about how best to put the thing together. She smiled faintly. It wouldn't take them long, especially since they'd seen her weapon transform hundreds of times.

Slowly, without her even realising it, her eyes began to close.

X X X

Averia looked at her mom. The pink haired woman was fast asleep, one arm tucked beneath her head, the other splayed out across her stomach. "Diana." She nudged her sister. "Look at mom."

Diana looked over and her eyes widened. "She's asleep." She glanced about suspiciously. "Do you think she's faking? I've never seen mom asleep. Even when we sneak into her room, she's always awake. I bet she's just resting her eyes or something." She frowned. "Do you think she even sleeps? She might be spying on us."

Averia rolled her eyes. "Don't be silly, of course mom sleeps." She paused. "Maybe. But remember, she's been working a lot this week. Aunt Serah had to bring us to school and pick us up almost every day, and since mommy got back on Tuesday, she's been the one looking after us. We didn't even see mom at all yesterday!"

Diana scowled. "I know. I talked to Uncle Hope and he said it was because lots of other people got sick, and if mom didn't look after the new people then they'd probably all get eaten or something."

"He's right though. I saw some of the new people last month when I went with mom to work. Some of them are pretty bad." She sighed. Having parents who were heroes could be tough sometimes. "But at least she's getting some sleep now."

"What if we wake her up?" Diana sounded horrified. Sometimes their mommy could get grumpy when she woke up too early in the morning, what would their mom be like if she got grumpy?

"Stop worrying." Averia padded over to her mom and waved her hands around in front of her face. "She's really asleep, I think. So long as we don't do anything dumb like set off the smoke alarms again, we should be fine."

"Oh, okay." Diana grinned. "Since this is the first time we've seen mom sleep like this, we should do something to remember it."

Averia's lips curled. "I think I know what we can do."

X X X

Fang padded out of the kitchen, a spring in her step. The roast was almost halfway done, and the scent of it filled the house. It had been a bit of a hassle tracking down all of the herbs and spices, but it would be worth it. Traditional Yun cooking was unsurpassed when it came to the art of roasting, and it felt good to do a bit more cooking around the house, especially when Lightning so obviously needed someone to lighten the load a little.

However, she came to a sudden stop as got to the living room.

Lightning was still on the couch, looking as deliciously rumpled as ever, but the rest of the room looked a little different. Rose petals had been scattered across the couch and over Lightning, and a veritable forest of block trees had been thrown up around the couch, along with a block castle. It boggled the mind, and she couldn't help but wonder how exactly the girls had managed to get the whole thing up in less than twenty minutes. Hopefully they hadn't constructed block robots that could make other block things because if they had, they were all in deep, deep trouble.

And speaking of the girls, the two of them were conferring in hushed whispers over by the coffee table. Diana was wearing what appeared to be a fairy costume, while a somewhat less enthusiastic looking Averia had a pair of clothes hangers taped to the back of her shirt.

"What are you two doing?" Fang whispered.

Diana grinned. "You don't have to whisper, mommy." She pointed at Lightning. "She's really, really asleep."

Fang shook her head slowly. Lightning really must be exhausted if she was that deeply asleep. Normally, Lightning only got like that after the two of them had, ahem, engaged in marital relations.

"I see." Fang gestured at the rest of the room. "So, what is all of this?"

"My class is going to be putting on a play at the end of the year. I'm probably going to be the narrator, so I thought I could practice telling a story." Averia pointed at the video camera perched on a nearby shelf. "Diana said we should record everything so we could watch it later, and well, everything else just sort of happened."

Fang smiled faintly. A lot of things around their house just sort of happened. "So, you're telling a story. What does that have to do with your mom? Shouldn't you wake her up for this."

Diana shook her head. "No, mommy, she has to be asleep for this." She pointed at Fang. "And you have to do your part too."

"My part?" Fang asked. "And why does your mom have to be asleep?"

"Because it's going to be the story of Sleeping Beauty." Averia glared at Fang. "Didn't you read the school newsletter? That's the play my class is doing later."

As a matter of fact, Fang hadn't read the newsletter. However, she knew better than to say that. "Of course, how silly of me to forget." She waved at Averia. "By all means, go on."

Averia's eyes narrowed. "You didn't read the newsletter, did you?" She sighed. "Never mind, let's get started." She glared at Fang one more time and then went to check that the video camera was on. "A long, long time ago, in a kingdom far, far away, there lived a beautiful queen and a handsome king." She paused dramatically. "And they both had pink hair."

Fang raised one eyebrow. Perhaps her habit of twisting fairy tales to fit their family and the others had begun to rub off on the kids. Oh well, at the very least it meant that this should be interesting. "Pink hair, huh? That's kind of rare, don't you think?"

Averia shrugged. "It's not that rare." She grinned at Diana. "Besides, pink hair is the best and – ow!" She scowled at the younger girl. "You punched me!" Diana gave Averia a dirty look and raised her fist again. "Fine, dark hair is pretty good too." Diana nodded firmly and gave Fang a smile. "Anyway, the king and queen were very, very happy, except for the fact that they did not have a child. Finally, after years of waiting, the queen gave birth to a beautiful baby girl. The king and queen were so overjoyed that they decided to invite all the fairies in the kingdom to celebrate. Unfortunately, they made a mistake."

Fang had a feeling about where this was going…

"They forgot to invite one of the fairies, and although a normal fairy wouldn't have minded, this fairy was a bad fairy." Averia shook her head. "And when this fairy found out she wasn't invited, she became very, very mad."

Fang smirked. "What was the fairy's name, Averia?"

"Uh…" Averia winced. Clearly, she hadn't considered that. "Um… Jill. It was the evil fairy Jill."

Fang bit back a laugh. The girls had heard the several abridged versions of their adventures as l'Cie, and in none of the versions did Lightning have anything nice to say about Jihl.

"So, the evil fairy Jill cursed the baby princess and said that when the princess turned sixteen, she would cut herself on a sword and die." Averia gestured at Diana, and the younger girl looked into the video camera with the proper amount of horror and dismay.

"So, what did the king and queen do?" Fang asked.

This time, Averia was ready with an answer. "Well, they were very lucky because there were to very good, very awesome fairies that just happened to be there to use their magic to change the curse that the evil fairy had put on the princess." She pointed at Diana. "The first fairy said…"

Diana did a pirouette and pointed an improvised wand at Lightning. "When the princess cuts herself with a sword, instead of dying, she will fall into a deep, deep sleep." Diana pointed her wand at Averia. "And then the second fairy said…"

"When her true love kisses her, she will awaken." Averia looked at Diana, who had begun to glare at her. "What? I said what I was supposed to."

Diana put her hands on her hips. "You have to do it right." She handed her sister her fairy wand. "Here."

It took every bit of willpower that Fang had to keep from laughing.

Averia's eye twitched in a very Lightning-like way, and she glared first at Fang and then Diana, before finally turning her glare on the very, very pink, and very, very sparkly fairy wand. "I'm not doing this."

Diana pouted.

Averia glared.

Diana pouted harder.

Averia glared more evilly.

And Fang wondered how long it would be before one of her daughter's suffered a stroke.

Finally, Averia gave a great sigh. "Fine." She twirled with all the grace of a ballerina and then pointed the fairy wand at Lightning. "When her true love kisses her, she will awaken." She stabbed the fairy wand in the air. "There? Happy?"

Diana smiled sunnily. "Now, I am."

"Anyway," Averia continued. "The princess grew up to be the most beautiful person in the whole kingdom, but her parents never forgot about the curse. Even though the princess wanted to learn how to fight, they made a law forbidding anyone from giving her a sword, and they made extra sure that no swords were ever kept where the princess could find them. Yet even if she couldn't have a real sword, the princess learned all about fighting from watching the soldiers practice from her window, and when no one was looking, she practiced with a wooden sword that she had made in her spare time."

Fang grinned. "Sounds like my kind of princess."

"She is." Averia nodded, and Diana ambled over to Lightning, putting the plastic gun blade in the pink haired woman's hands.

To Fang's amazement – and Averia and Diana's awe – Lightning actually picked up the weapon and proceeded to wave it through the air in threatening fashion, all while still asleep. Dear Etro, the woman was a sleep fighter. Talk about dedication to her job.

"But one day, the princess managed to sneak away. Even worse, one of the guards had left a sword out in the practice yard, and it wasn't long before the princess found it. She was in the middle of practicing with it, when her parents found her. They cried out in horror and startled the princess, who cut herself by accident."

"The princess fell into a faint." Averia pointed at Lightning. "And although the king and queen tried everything they could to try and wake her up, nothing would work. At last, they summoned the two fairies who had helped them before. The queen asked them what they could do, and the fairies reminded her that all they could do was wait for the princess's true love to come and wake her up with a kiss. But the king and queen were filled with sadness. How could anyone fall in love with their daughter if she was asleep?" Averia sighed. "Finally, the fairies came up with a plan. They would put everyone in the castle to sleep as well, so that the king and queen would not be sad, and so that when the princess finally did wake up, her family would be with her."

Diana pointed at the makeshift forest and castle around the couch. "But even though the people were all asleep, not everything else was. For a hundred years all the plants and trees grew and grew until the whole castle was hidden behind them." She pointed to the blocks again. "See, mommy?"

"I see." Fang pointed at a plastic tank hidden amongst the plastic trees. "But why do you have a tank there?"

Diana gave her a serious look. "It's to keep away bad guys until the princess's true love comes." She frowned. "I was going to put a few more, but Averia said they didn't have tanks back then."

"They didn't." Averia nodded at Fang. "Now it's your turn to do something."

"What?"

"Just do what Diana does." Averia cleared her throat. "A hundred years passed before finally a brave warrior from a faraway land rode past the castle." Diana pretended to ride a chocobo, and Fang gave a shrug before imitating her daughter. "When the warrior saw the overgrown forest, she decided to investigate because she was brave and adventurous." She paused and then added, "And maybe a bit crazy too."

"Hey!" Fang said.

"It's just a story," Averia said. "I didn't say it was you."

Fang's eyes narrowed before she looked back at Diana. The younger girl was waving her arms through the air, and Fang followed her, pretending to hack through the forest of plastic blocks before she finally reached the couch where Lightning was asleep.

"At last," Averia said. "The warrior reached the castle. When she saw all the people lying around, she was worried, and she thought that all of them were dead. But when she saw they were only asleep, she tried to wake them up. However, none of them would wake up. So with nothing else to do, the warrior explored the castle. Eventually, she reached the tallest tower of the castle where the princess was asleep on a bed of rose petals."

Diana reached into her pockets and threw a few more rose petals on top of Lightning. Silently, Fang wondered just where they'd gotten the rose petals. She really, really hoped they hadn't gotten them from Serah's rose bush next door, otherwise Fang would have one angry Farron to deal with – and not the one that she could drag into bed to bed for a bit of Yun-Farron style anger management.

"And that was when…" Averia grimaced. "The warrior saw the princess. The warrior had never seen someone who looked so beautiful and peaceful, and she fell in love at once." Fang chuckled at the sour look on her daughter's face. "In fact, the warrior was so overcome with love that she couldn't stop herself from leaning in and kissing the princess."

Fang smiled and knelt down by the side of the couch. In all honesty, Lightning was looking decidedly un-princess like. There were a few smudges of dirt on Lightning's face, most likely from an explosion of some sort, and her hair was definitely a little dishevelled and grimy. The scent that Fang had always thought of as uniquely Lightning was also muffled by the harsher smell of disinfectant, scorched metal, and ozone. But even like this, Lightning still somehow managed to give off a stunning, regal air. Heck, Fang had a feeling that Lightning could make a burlap sack look good.

Giving the girls one last smirk, Fang leaned over and kissed Lightning on the lips. Vaguely, she was aware of Averia and Diana screaming that the warrior had kissed the princess on the hand not the lips, but then Lightning stirred and began to respond. With a groan, Fang forced herself to pull away.

"Fang?" Lightning murmured sleepily as she rubbed at her face and sat up. "Is it time for dinner?" She frowned. "And why am I covered in rose petals and… what happened to our living room?"

Fang gave Lightning another quick kiss on the lips. It was rare to see the pink haired woman so confused, but it was quite adorable. "It's a long story, one that you can see after dinner." She scooped Lightning up into her arms. "But first, you'd better help me in the kitchen. The roast should be finished any moment now." She looked at Averia. "So, what happened at the end?"

Averia rolled her eyes. "Of course, they lived happily ever after." She smirked. "And they had two kids, one awesome kid with pink hair and one not as awesome kid with dark hair."

Diana grabbed the plastic gun blade.

"Make that, two equally awesome kids.

X X X

Later, when the kids were asleep, and Fang and Lightning were in their bedroom, the two adults watched the video that the girls had recorded. When it was done, Lightning gave Fang a thoughtful look.

"What's wrong?" Fang asked. Her lips twitched. "Not enough action for you?"

"They changed the ending," Lightning said softly. "In the original, the princess's mother and father don't make it to the end of the story. They die of grief when she falls asleep."

"Well, they did cast us as the main characters in the story," Fang said. "And they do know how much you miss your parents."

Lightning smiled. "I just wish they could have met the girls. They'd love them, if the girls didn't drive them crazy in the first five minutes." She gave Fang another thoughtful look, this one far less wistful and much more heated. "I'm just glad they didn't read the original version of the story."

"Oh?" Fang's eyes gleamed.

"It's a little more… risqué." Lightning leaned over, lips a hair's breadth from Fang's. "Why don't you be the princess this time, and I'll show you?"

"I thought you were tired."

Lightning rolled on top of Fang. "We can sleep in tomorrow morning."

X X X

Just before noon the next morning, Lightning and Fang woke up to the sound of excited yelling from downstairs. Almost afraid of what they would find, they headed for the living room. Last night, the kids had put together a plastic block forest in about twenty minutes, who knew what they could do in a few hours?

Waiting for them in the living room were Diana and Averia. Each of them had a working gun blade, and both of them were on top of a five feet tall scale-model of Bahamut.

X X X

**Author's Notes**

As always, I neither own Final Fantasy, nor am I making any money off of this.

So… it's been a while. To make a long story short, my previous laptop, on which I did all my writing, had a massive screen malfunction. In the end, I decided to get a new one since repairing the old one was likely to be expensive, and I've been meaning to get a new one for a while now. However, once I'd decided that, I then had to decide what kind I wanted to get and all that other stuff. But, now that I have finally acquired a new laptop, I can get on with business as usual.

My only gripe is that I'm about two chapters behind where I'd like to be on most of my stories here. I had hoped to finish _Wasteland_ before the end of the year, but now that's pretty much impossible, and I've also fallen behind on _Whispers of the Gods_. I know that a lot of people are waiting for the next chapter of _Whispers of the Gods_ and I assure you that the next chapter is mostly written – in my head. I also have something planned for Christmas, but we'll see how that goes.

With regards to this chapter, this one is fairly straightforward. It's a retelling of Sleeping Beauty. The main change is that the king and queen survive. I've always thought it was kind of sad that they didn't make it (not to mention, the fairies really missed their timing by letting the queen die of grief before putting everyone to sleep… oops, I guess). As for my reference to the more risqué version of Sleeping Beauty… there's a funny story about that.

As a child, I read pretty much everything I could get my hands on, regardless of what age it was aimed at, or what genre it was. During primary school, I stumbled upon the work of Anne Rice, and I quickly read everything she'd written up until that point.

Parental Tip #1: Anne Rice is probably not appropriate for primary schoolers.

I even submitted a book report about one of her books in sixth grade. To this day, I've always been kind of curious to know what my teacher thought of that. Anyway, I eventually became aware of the fact that she'd written under several pseudonyms.

Parental Tip #2: The version of Sleeping Beauty that Anne Rice wrote under a pseudonym is really, really not appropriate for primary schoolers.

Needless to say, reading that was an interesting experience although I had to read it in the library, since I doubt my parents would have let me borrow it. In any case, there are versions of Sleeping Beauty that are quite old that do put a more risqué slant on things, and it's some of these that Lightning is referring toward the end. Frankly, I'm surprised Lightning never tried taking off a few clothes to wake up Fang and Vanille. It might not have worked on Vanille (or would it?), but it certainly would have gotten Fang's attention, stasis or not.

As for the whole plastic blocks thing (I couldn't just call it Lego since Lego doesn't exist in their universe), I loved those as a kid, and I think they're exactly the sort of thing that Diana and Averia would love too. Of course, I never managed to build weapons out of them, but the Yun-Farron kids are a good deal more mischievous than I ever was.

As always, I appreciate feedback. Reviews and comments are welcome.


	9. Chapter 9

**The Ugly Duckling**

Fang was used to a lot of different reactions when she went to pick Diana up from school. However, this was not one of them. Instead of tackling her with all the noise and force of a small avalanche, her little girl trudged past in complete silence with her head down. Diana didn't even look up when Fang reached out to take her schoolbag.

"How was your day, Diana?" If this were a cartoon, Fang was certain that miniature storm clouds would have gathered around her daughter's head.

"It was okay." Diana sniffled, and Fang paused mid-step. Something had made Diana sad, and she was going to find out what it was. Then she was going to kill it.

Out of the corner of her eye, Fang spotted Averia. The pink haired girl and Claire were going to spend the night at their friend Yuna's house. The three of them had a group assignment due in by the end of the week, and the sleepover was supposed to help them finish it. Knowing them, however, they would probably spend most of the night doing everything but the assignment.

"Averia." Fang waved her daughter over. "What happened to Diana? Did someone pick on her?"

"Of course not." Averia scowled. "As if I'd let that happen." Her gaze drifted toward Diana. The younger girl was sitting on a nearby bench, her knees pulled up to her chest. "We had school photos today."

"School photos?" Well, that would explain Lightning's frantic attempts to tame the jungle that was Diana's hair. But that still didn't make much sense. What was so bad about school photos?

"Just ask her, mommy." Averia looked back at Yuna and Claire. "I have to go now, okay? Yuna's dad is really busy." She took a few steps and then stopped. "I meant what I said earlier. If you ask Diana about the school photos, you'll understand."

Fang turned back to Diana. Her daughter hadn't moved at all since she'd climbed onto the bench. Considering how active Diana usually was, that wasn't a good sign at all. In a bid to cheer the girl up, Fang darted over and tossed Diana over her shoulder as she ran for the car. Most of the time, doing something like this would have elicited at least a giggle and some good-natured grumbling. Diana didn't make a sound. It was like carrying a sack of potatoes.

Inside the car, Fang turned off the radio in favour of the official Gary the Gorgonopsid soundtrack. It was the complete opposite of good music, but it was a parent's responsibility to look after their child, and she could put up with an overly optimistic gorgonopsid for Diana's sake. But even with Gary on, the atmosphere in the car was nothing short of horrible. It was like being at a funeral, which was the very opposite of what it was usually like to be around Diana.

Diana was Fang's little ray of hyper, sugar-loving sunshine. She wasn't supposed to be glum. Hands tightening around the steering wheel, Fang tried to sing along to the soundtrack. Hopefully, Diana would join her.

"Mommy, you're getting the words wrong."

Ouch. Diana had done an almost perfect imitation of Lighting, complete with scowl and scary voice.

It looked like there was no more use in beating around the bush.

"Diana," Fang said. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing." Diana looked out the window and scowled. "I'm fine."

"Oh." This was bad. Averia was supposed to be the quiet one. Fang no idea what to do with a Diana who acted more like a grumpy version of Lightning than herself. "Uh… Averia said you had your school photos taken today."

Nothing.

Then…

"It's not fair! It's not fair! IT'S NOT FAIR!"

Diana sudden shout was so loud that Fang almost swerved off the road. A chorus of honks greeted her as she struggled to straighten the car out. Phew. Not only was this Lightning's favourite car – the other one was in for routine maintenance – but if Fang got into a crash with one of the kids, Lightning would strangle her after making sure everyone was okay.

"What's not fair?" Fang turned off the main road and threaded her way along the quieter suburban roads that led to their house.

Diana's eyes burned with the fire of a thousand unappreciated suns. "I was the smallest in my class. They made us line up, so I know for sure that I was the smallest."

"That's doesn't sound too bad." Fang knew Diana could be a bit touchy about her size, but she'd never gotten this upset about it before. Maybe something else had happened.

"Yes, it is!" Snarling and waving one fist in the air, Diana would have looked threatening if she hadn't been so small and cute. "I was the smallest last year and all the years before that too, and I've done everything I'm supposed to. I go to bed early most nights, and I drink lots of milk. I don't even eat that much junk food, and I'm still small. It's. Not. Fair."

"Oh." To say that Fang was taken aback was an understatement. She didn't think being small was that big a deal, but then again, she'd never been short. For as long as she could remember, she'd always been at least average in height, and by the time puberty was done, she was one of the tallest women in the village. If anyone had experience being short, it was Vanille, and rather than complain, the red head seemed to delight in using that as excuse to make Fang do things for her.

Whether or not it was a big deal to Fang, it was clearly a big deal to Diana, and Fang wasn't about to let her little girl stay upset. The Dia had the perfect story for this situation, although Fang might have to change it a little bit for Diana's case.

"How about I tell you a story when we get home?"

"I don't want to hear a story." Diana folded her arms over her chest and pouted. "I want to be taller."

"I think you might like this story." Fang grinned. Time to sell it. "It has a dragon in it."

"A dragon?" Diana did her best not to look curious. She failed miserably. "I guess I could listen for a bit."

"Good." Fang pulled into their driveway and hopped out of the car. The front door was open a few seconds later, and Diana marched past.

After Diana had put her schoolbag away – there was a hook for it near the front door so she wouldn't forget it each morning – she went straight up to her room. Fang waited on the living room couch, and it wasn't long before Diana came back with Mr Snaggles. The little girl curled up against Fang's side and clutched the plush toy to her chest. Diana liked to say that she was a big girl, but at time like this she needed the austere wisdom – and soft cuddliness – of her favourite plush toy.

"So, what's this story, mommy?" Diana asked.

"Before I tell you the story, Diana, I want to ask you something, and I want you to answer me honestly. It doesn't matter what you say, I want you to tell the truth. I promise I won't get mad."

Diana looked at Fang. Her mommy didn't get serious like this a lot. She better tell the truth. "Okay, I had some extra chocolate after dinner yesterday."

Fang winced. "That's not what I was going to ask you about."

"Oh." Diana looked at Mr Snaggles. The dragon looked as worried as she felt. "Can you not tell mom?"

"Don't worry, it'll be our secret." Fang grinned. "But can you tell me why it bothers you so much that you're small? You're still very young, you know."

"But I've always been the smallest!" Diana hugged Mr Snaggles closer. "You and mom are bigger than me, and even Claire and Averia are bigger than me!"

Sometimes – well, a lot of the time – Fang wondered what went on in her younger daughter's head. Of course, she and Lightning were bigger than Diana – they were adults. And of course, Averia and Claire were bigger than Diana too – they were three years older. By the time the girls reached their twenties, those three years wouldn't matter anymore, but for now, they mattered a lot. But she doubted that was what Diana wanted to hear right now.

"It's not fair." Diana huffed. "You're tall and cool and awesome and so is mom, and Averia gets to do all these awesome things that I can't do because I'm too small. I'm always going to get left behind because I'm always going to be small."

There was a grain of truth there. Averia was further along in some things that Diana wanted to learn, like how to use a sword or a spear, but that was only natural. Diana wasn't big enough or strong enough to do the same things as her older sister. But Diana was growing – as one of the people Diana frequently received piggybacks from, Fang could attest to that fact.

"I bet you and mom were born awesome," Diana grumbled. "I bet you weren't ever small like me. You were probably born really tall and strong and stuff."

"Really?" Fang's lips twitched. Diana had watched enough nature documentaries to realise that everything started small.

"Well, maybe you were little, but I bet you grew up really, really fast. I want to grow up fast too."

"No, you don't." The words came out before Fang could stop them and a good deal harsher than she'd intended. Diana had no way of realising how close to home her words hit. Fang had grown up fast. She'd had no choice with a war going on, and the absolute last thing she wanted was for her children to go through the same thing. The longer Diana could stay a child, the happier Fang would be.

"Look." Fang's voice softened. "Just because you're small now, it doesn't mean that you're going to be small forever. And even if you can't do all the awesome stuff you want to do now, it doesn't mean that you won't get to do it later." She paused. "Now, do you want to hear my story?"

Diana frowned. "You said it had a dragon in it." She waved Mr Snaggles at Fang as menacingly as she could. "So there better be a dragon in it."

"I promise there will be a dragon in it."

"Okay." Diana snuggled up to Fang. "What's the story called?"

"The ugly duckling."

The little girl glared up at Fang. "That doesn't sound like it will have a dragon in it, and I hope there aren't mean people in it, because it sounds like there will be."

"Well, there will be a few mean people in it, but it does have a happy ending." Fang pulled Diana up into her lap. Diana flailed for a moment and then relaxed as Fang ran one hand through her hair. Grumpy as she was, Diana still loved a cuddle.

"Start telling the story, mommy!"

"Calm down, calm down." Fang patted Diana on the head. "A long, long time ago, way before you were born, there was a beautiful lake in Gran Pulse. It had crystal clear water and beautiful waterlilies. All along the banks, there were lush, green trees and lots of flowers. Many animals lived in the lake and one of them was a mother duck."

"A duck?" Diana's eyes narrowed. "You said there would be a dragon. Duck's aren't cool at all. They're all… small and weak… they're like the opposite of a dragon."

"Hold your chocobos," Fang said. Diana tried to continue glaring, but eventually settled for using Fang's chest as a pillow. "Anyway, this mother duck had a dozen eggs waiting to hatch. Now, ducks are very protective of their eggs, so she watched them very closely. And it was a good thing too. There were some big fish in the lake that liked eggs, and there were even other birds that wanted to take them." She grinned. "There were even some gorgonpsids that wanted the eggs."

"I bet Gary wouldn't eat them. He's nice."

"Of course he is." Gary was also imaginary. "So the mother duck watched her eggs very carefully until one day, they started to hatch. All of them hatched except one, and all the ducklings that came out were pretty and cute and looked exactly like ducklings should. But the egg that didn't hatch was different."

"How was it different?" Diana asked. "Was it really a grenade?"

What the? Fang sighed. She might have to ask Lightning not to talk about work so much. True, the other woman censored out all the gory details, but they had to be doing something wrong if Diana compared eggs to grenades. "No, it wasn't a grenade. The egg was different because unlike all the other eggs, it was very big and it looked like it was made of metal."

"Cool, a metal egg!"

"The egg took such a long time to hatch that the mother duck began to worry. She loved all her perfect little ducklings, and she thought there might be something wrong with the last egg. Some of the other ducks told her that she should forget about the last egg, but the mother duck continued to watch over it. Finally, at long last, the day came when it hatched.

"But instead of another perfect little duckling, what came out of the egg was the biggest, strangest, ugliest duckling that the mother duck had ever seen. It had teeth instead of a beak, and it had scales instead of feathers. Even its wings were different, and it had sharp claws. The mother duck was very surprised, but she thought that maybe it was because of how long the duckling had been in its egg. Maybe the duckling would look more like a duckling after a while."

"That sounds like a weird duckling." Diana frowned. "What happened next? Were people mean to the duckling?"

"For a while, the mother duck tried to teach the ugly duckling how to live like a normal duckling. But the ugly duckling didn't like swimming in the lake, and it was big and clumsy and not cute at all. When the mother duck took her ducklings around, all the other animals were very mean to the ugly duckling."

"What did they do?" Diana asked. "And did the mother duck peck them for being mean?"

"The other ducks said the ugly duckling wasn't a duck at all. One of them said he was an eagle, and another one said he was a vulture. But a lot of them said they should kill him before he got big enough to eat them all."

"They can't do that!" Diana jerked up into a sitting position and nearly hit Fang's chin with the top of her head. "You can't kill people just because they look different!"

"No, you can't." Fang nodded. "But that wasn't all. The fish didn't think the ugly duckling was a duck either, because he didn't like the water and he couldn't quack like all the other ducklings. Instead, the ugly duckling could roar and the sound was loud and scary. So instead of making friends with him, all the other animals made fun of the ugly duckling's black scales and strange looking wings. Finally, even the mother duck stopped liking him because he was so different from all the other ducklings."

"That's not right." Diana grabbed Fang's arm. "His mommy should love him even if he looks weird!"

"Yes, she should." A grin crossed Fang's lips. "And your mom and I would love you no matter what you looked like, Diana."

"Even if I looked like a frog with two heads?"

Once again, Fang wondered at the mysteries of her daughter's mind. "Yes, even if you looked like a frog with two heads."

"What happened to the ugly duckling then, mommy?"

"The ugly duckling ran away. No one liked him and everyone was mean to him, so he didn't want to stay at the lake anymore. Eventually, he reached another lake. But this wasn't a nice lake like the one he had come from. It was in the middle of a swamp, and there were lots of monsters and scary things. But at least no one called him ugly, and it wasn't so bad if he didn't have friends, because no one there had friends either. He stayed there for a while, but no matter how much he tried, he couldn't stop himself from wanting to make friends."

"Did he make any friends?"

"No," Fang said. "He tried talking to some of the animals, but even they had never seen anyone like him, and when they saw his big teeth and claws they were afraid. You see, the ugly duckling had grown very big, and every day he grew bigger. It made him sad because ducks weren't supposed to be big, and other animals weren't supposed to be afraid of ducks.

"One day, some people came, and he tried to make friends with them. He tried his best to talk to them, but each time, he could only roar and make loud sounds. Finally, the people ran away, and when they came back, they had swords and spears."

"Oh no!" Diana grabbed Mr Snaggles tighter. "Did they hurt the ugly duckling?"

"They tried." Fang patted Diana on the back. "But the ugly duckling flew away using his big, weird looking wings. When he landed again, it was on a lonely, far away mountain where nobody else lived."

"That's sad." Diana sniffled. "You said this would have a happy ending, mommy. And there still isn't a dragon!"

"There will be," Fang replied. "The ugly duckling lived alone on that mountain for a long, long time, and he grew bigger and bigger, and his claws and teeth grew sharper and sharper. He got so scary looking that he was afraid to look at his own reflection, and he made sure to always close his eyes whenever he went down to the river to drink. He was worried that he'd grown so ugly that he could never make friends.

"One day, while he was on his mountain, the ugly duckling saw something amazing. Flying through the air were the most beautiful animals he'd ever seen. They had graceful wings and bodies made of bright metal that shone in the sun. They were faster than any bird and bigger, but there was nothing ugly about them. They were beautiful and proud, and everything the ugly duckling wished he could be. They were dragons!"

"Cool!" Diana nodded eagerly. "What happened then?"

"The ugly duckling wished he could be like the dragons because then people would like him, and he would make lots of friends. So he decided to follow them. He flew far behind them, so they wouldn't know he was there and drive him away. More than anything in the world he wanted to be like them, or at the very least, to meet them. He wanted it so much that he didn't care if they were mean to him or even if they killed him. He wanted to belong somewhere, and he'd tried everywhere else. The dragons were his last chance."

"Oh no."

Fang ran one hand through Diana's hair. It was a little spiky at the front, but otherwise, it was smooth and silky. "For a long, long time, the ugly duckling followed the dragons. He went through a lot of very bad things, but finally, he found the courage to try and talk to them. Hoping against hope, he flew faster and revealed himself to the dragons."

Diana tightened her hold on Fang's middle, Mr Snaggles tucked in between them. "Was he okay?"

"To his surprise, the dragons were not afraid. Instead, they bowed their heads in awe. The ugly duckling was scared because he didn't know why they were acting like that. Then he saw his reflection in the metal bodies of the dragons. Instead of the ugly, misshapen duckling he had been, he saw something else. He saw a black dragon with purple streaks and broad, graceful wings. He saw a black dragon bigger than all the others and with claws that gleamed orange in the sunlight. He wasn't ugly anymore – he was beautiful. And he wasn't a duckling – he was a dragon."

"Awesome!"

"After that, the dragon wasn't sad anymore. He had suffered a lot, but that only made him happier to finally find a place where he belonged. And from that day onward, everywhere he went, all the other animals praised him and looked up to him. He was the best dragon of them all."

Fang let the words sink in for a moment and then continued. "You see, Diana, you're a lot like that dragon."

"Are you saying I'm ugly?"

"No!"

"Then did I come from an egg?"

"No, well kind of… it's complicated." Fang shook her head. She absolutely refused to have The Talk with Diana right now. "Look, the point is, what you are now doesn't have to be what you are when you grow up. Remember, the dragon didn't start off beautiful and strong, and when he was young, no one thought he was good at all. You're young now, and there's lot of things you can't do, but when you grow up, you can do anything or be anything you want."

"Cool." Diana hugged Fang. "Could I even be a dragon?"

"Uh… no." Fang chuckled. "But there's no reason you can't be even taller than your sister when you grow up. And when you're older, I bet you'll be good enough to be an officer in the Guardian Corps, like your mom. I know it seems tough right now, but you have to be like the dragon. You have to keep going, and one day, you'll find a place in the world that's meant just for you, and then everything will make sense."

Diana's fists clenched. "But that's only a story. What if… what if…"

"Want to know a secret?" Fang asked. Diana nodded eagerly. "It isn't only a story. In fact, I know the dragon."

"You do? Who was it?"

"Bahamut."

"Wow…" The thought of Bahamut – the epitome of all things dragon and cool – not being born awesome was something Diana had never considered before. If Bahamut had started off all weird and strange, then maybe… maybe…

"You see, Diana? Things aren't so bad because you're small right now. One day, you'll be all grown up and every bit as awesome as you want to be." Fang lifted Diana up over her shoulder. "For now though, you're still my little girl."

"Put me down, mommy!" Diana giggled and kicked her legs. "Put me down!"

"Not going to!" Fang started toward the kitchen. "I'm going to go to the fridge and make you eat all the vegetables in it!"

A cry of horror burst from Diana's lips. "No!" She laughed. "Mommy, that's not fair!"

It was good to hear Diana laugh again. To protect that happiness, Fang would give almost anything. She would have to talk to Bahamut later though. The story she'd told was a twist of an old Dia story about a swan, not a dragon, but she was sure the Eidolon wouldn't mind once she explained. He had a soft spot for Diana.

X X X

Later that night, Lightning carried Diana up to her and Fang's bedroom. The little girl was already sound asleep, and she and Fang had decided that Diana could spent the night with them. It wouldn't be long now before the girls were too old to want to cuddle, and she wanted to savour all of these moments. Fang was already in bed, a wry smile on her lips as she watched Lightning put Diana in the middle of their bed.

"Did you have fun watching cartoons with her?"

"It wasn't like I had a choice." Lightning frowned. "Someone said they had some very important paperwork to do. Funny, I don't see any of it around."

"I finished five minutes ago." Fang put down the book she'd been reading.

"I'm sure you did." Lightning climbed into bed. "Diana told me about your little story today. That was a sweet thing you did."

Lightning loved this side of Fang. There were times when the other woman could across as a bit brash, even cocky. But when it came to the people she loved, Fang would always be willing to go out of her way to make them feel better. Admittedly, the story was a bit ridiculous, but it was exactly the kind of story that Diana would like and understand.

"Do you really think she'll be taller than Averia?" Lightning asked.

"Maybe." Fang grinned. "After all, she does take more after me than you, and I am taller than you."

"Not by that much."

"I'm still taller."

"Idiot." Lightning turned off the lights and pulled up the covers. Diana was cradled between her and Fang, and with a quiet murmur, the girl shifted to use Lightning's chest as a pillow –

"Ouch!"

Fang flipped the lights back on. "What?"

Lightning winced. "Diana poked me in the eye with her hair."

"Ah." Fang chuckled and turned the lights back off. "I guess that's why Averia complains all the time."

X X X

Fang was right. It took more than a decade, but when everything was said and done, Averia was almost the same height as Lightning, whereas Diana was the same height as Fang. And Claire? She took after one of her parents too – Snow. Much to both Diana and Averia's aggravation, Claire ended up the tallest out of all of them.

X X X

**Author's Notes**

As always, I neither own Final Fantasy, nor am I making any money off of this.

It's been a while, hasn't it? Well, I recently read the original version of the ugly duckling, and I couldn't resist putting together a story about it. Diana's reaction might seem a bit extreme, but children can – and do – obsess over the strangest things. Diana's height – or lack thereof – is simply the easiest thing for her to notice, so she latches onto it.

I've had a few questions about how the girls end up in the future, and I thought I'd throw a little bit of information out there. You can bet that Diana gave Averia some grief once she got taller, and that Avera knocked her back down to size (Lightning style) with a bonk over the head. In this regard I do sympathise with Averia – my youngest sibling is now taller than pretty much everyone else in the family. Oh well, that's how things work out sometimes.

For the people who've been asking, yes, I do plan on covering the story of Diana's birth. And, yes, it probably will turn out as strange as she is.

On an unrelated note, in the next month or so, I will be releasing three short stories on Amazon as eBooks (the term short story is deceptive, since they are each between 15,000 and 20,000 words long). One is a high fantasy, another is a darker fantasy, and the third is a paranormal Western. If you want to follow what's going on with those, I'll keep you updated on my blog and deviant art (see my profile for links – I've started a separate blog pertaining to original fiction and writing related stuff).

As always, I appreciated feedback. Reviews and comments are welcome.


	10. Chapter 10

**A Tale of Two Sisters**

There were few things in the world as peaceful as curling up underneath a warm quilt with a book, especially on a cold winter night. But Lightning had a feeling that her peace wouldn't be lasting much longer. The pitter-patter of small feet came from outside her door, and there was only one person in the house with feet that small.

Lightning smiled. She had to hand it to Diana. Normally, her younger daughter was quite noisy. She liked to throw what little weight she had around. It probably made her feel bigger, which was something that Diana wanted with every fibre of her being. But Diana could also sneak around when she had to.

It was just a pity that Lightning was used to people sneaking around – she happened to be married to one of the sneakiest people in the world and her sister-in-law was almost as bad. So Diana had a long, long way to go before she would be able to sneak up on Lightning. Not that Lightning minded her trying. Diana was at her most adorable when she was trying to get one up on her parents and older sister.

Still, it was well past Diana's bedtime. Lightning had already given her a bath, read her a story, and tucked her in. If Diana was awake again, there had to be a reason. A bogeyman attack or bad dream would normally have sent the little girl straight to her older sister for comfort and protection, but Averia wasn't home. Fang had taken the older girl out into the wilds for a week to teach Averia more about the Yun way of life.

With Averia and Fang gone, Diana was left with only one person to turn to – Lightning. Naturally, things weren't that simple. Diana was trying her hardest to be a big girl, and big girls didn't go to their parents whenever they had trouble sleeping. Diana would either try to sneak in or come up with some obviously fake excuse, and Lightning would do her best to humour Diana without making it too clear that she could see right through her.

Small hands turned the doorknob and eased the door open just wide enough for a little girl to sneak in. Lightning glanced up from her book. Diana had wrapped herself in Averia's blanket and was no creeping through the door and over to the foot of the bed. Keen to avoid being spotted, Diana pulled the blanket over her head and slunk across the floor on her stomach.

In Diana's mind it was the epitome of stealth. To Lightning's well-trained eye, it was the very opposite. Not only was the blanket making a lot of noise as it rubbed against the carpet but blankets also didn't just move across the floor on their own. And there was no missing the two plush toys – Mr Snaggles and Mr Gorgy Sharp Tooth – that stuck out of the blanket.

As stealthily as she could – which wasn't very stealthily at all – Diana lifted up the bottom of Lightning's quilt and began to crawl her way up the bed and over next to Lightning. Each movement was accompanied by the loud rustling of cloth and the muffled growls of a little girl who was getting more and more tangled in her sister's blanket with each wriggle.

Barely able to hold back her laughter, Lightning was sorely tempted to ask Diana if she really thought she hadn't been noticed. Halfway up the bed, the movement came to a stop and there was a frustrated sigh. Lightning had to stifle a chuckle. Diana must have gotten stuck. Oh well, it was time for mom to come to the rescue.

"What's this?" Lightning asked with as much curiosity as she could muster in her voice. "Did a mole sneak into my bed?"

Tugging the bundle under her quilt further up the bed, Lightning felt around until she found Diana's sides. Then she began to tickle. Diana giggled and tried to squirm away, but the blanket might as well have been a straightjacket.

"Stop it, mom! I'm not a mole, I'm your daughter!"

Lightning lifted Diana up and untangled Averia's blanket. "I guess I was wrong. It wasn't a mole – or maybe it was." She grinned as Diana wrapped Averia's blanket around her shoulders like a cape and scowled. Diana had stated on many a previous occasion that tickle fights were intrinsically unfair for size-challenged people like her. Lightning with her longer reach and greater strength was a horrible, horrible person for picking on someone as cute and cuddly as Diana.

"I'm not a mole, mom! Moles aren't cool, and it would be boring to live underground."

"The word 'mole' can mean more than one thing." Lightning hid a smile as Diana continued to scowl – even as she settled down on Lightning's lap. Apparently, the warmth of Lightning's lap excused her parental treachery. "A mole can also mean someone who is a spy."

"Really?" Diana perked up. "Then maybe I can be a mole, or maybe even a ninja mole – a ninja spy!"

"Yes, well, ninjas don't go around in blankets." Lightning moved her book onto her bedside table and wrapped her arms around Diana. Diana, never one to turn down a cuddle, made herself right at home. In what the girl likely believed to be an incredible display of generosity, Diana even adjusted Averia's blanket so that it was wrapped around both of them. "I thought I tucked you in, Diana. What's wrong?"

"Nothing." Diana pouted.

Ah. There probably had been a bogeyman attack then or perhaps a bad dream. That was almost certainly why Diana had come wrapped in Averia's blanket instead of her own. It was funny, though. Diana actually spent more time with that blanket than Averia since she was forever stealing it whenever she snuck into Averia's bed. The older girl was, apparently, as warm as a furnace even in the dead of winter – which had led to her becoming Diana's favourite source of warmth when it got cold.

Perhaps Averia had inherited that from Lightning? Fang was always telling Lightning that she was the hottest thing in the house although that could just have been an excuse to justify draping herself all over Lightning at every opportunity. Lightning had lost count of the number of times she'd woken up to find Fang wrapped around her, not that she minded much.

"Diana, it's okay if you were lonely."

Diana shook her head. "I wasn't lonely, mom. I never get lonely. But I thought that maybe you were lonely, so I came to keep you company." Diana nodded firmly, utterly convinced that she'd managed to fool Lightning.

It took a great deal of effort for Lightning to keep a straight face as she replied. "Maybe I am lonely," she said, voice grave. "So, I'm glad that you came to keep me company."

"It's okay." Diana patted her on the back. "Everybody gets lonely sometimes." She reached over and positioned her two plush toys on the pillow nearby. "Even Mr Snaggles and Mr Gorgy Sharp Tooth get lonely."

The two plush toys met Lightning's gaze evenly. As always, Mr Snaggles had the dignified expression of an elder statesman, but Mr Gorgy Sharp Tooth had a much more playful look. Vaguely, Lightning wondered how Diana would react if she was allowed to let the real Bahamut sleep next to her. Knowing Diana, she'd never go to sleep again without the Eidolon curled up beside her.

"At least there are four of us now." Lightning leaned back, running her hands through Diana's hair. The only light in the room came from the lamp on her bedside table. Diana went quiet for a few moments and then inched up so that she could play with Lightning's hair.

"What book were you reading?" Diana giggled and threw one leg across Lightning's stomach. The girl seemed to find the difference in size between them amusing and annoying. Still giggling, she grabbed one of Lightning's hands and moved the fingers into a claw-like position before pretending to fight off the purloined limb.

"I'm not sure you'd like it. It's a book about the changes in economic and social policy that have come about since the resettlement of Gran Pulse." Lightning laughed at the perplexed expression on Diana's face.

"Are there any guns in it?" Diana continued to grapple with Lightning's hand, which, in her mind, was bent on strangling her.

"Actually, they do talk about guns."

"And dragons?" Diana made choking noises and thrashed back and forth as she pushed Lightning's hand against her neck.

"They do mention at least one."

"Maybe you could read some of it to me." Diana flopped across Lightning's legs. Evidently, the deadly power of Lightning's hand had been too much.

"Not until you're a bit older. I think you'd find it boring. Even I don't think it's that interesting." The book was well written and soundly researched, but the language couldn't have been drier. Still, it had made a number of very good points. She might even talk over a few of them with Fang.

"Mom, how come we couldn't go with Averia and mommy?" Diana fiddled with Averia's blanket.

"I had work to do, and you're still too young." Lightning lay back on her pillow and pulled Diana up to lie beside her.

She and Fang had thought long and hard about which aspects of the other woman's heritage they would share with their children. There were some things that would obviously have to be left behind. They could hardly teach the girls that everyone from Cocoon was evil and deserved to have a spear in them.

According to Yun custom, Diana should also have made her first kill by now, most likely by slitting the throat of an animal that a more experienced hunter, namely Fang, had already disabled. Neither Lightning nor Fang wanted that for Diana. When the time finally came for Diana to learn how to hunt in the traditional manner, she would do it when she was old enough to really understand and appreciate what was happening. Both of them, however, had agreed that the girls should learn as much about surviving in the wild as possible.

"Remember, Diana, your mommy comes from the Yun clan. Part of being in the Yun clan is learning how to live in the wild, even when it's very cold. You're still too young for that kind of training, but in a few years, your mommy will teach you everything you need to know."

"I guess." Diana frowned. "But does that mean Averia doesn't have any TV or stuff right now?"

"No." Lightning laughed. "Part of living in the wild is learning how to survive without any electricity or magic because you won't always have those things. It might even be snowing out there, so your sister has to learn how to keep warm and even make her own shelter. One day, you'll learn how to do those things too."

"But if there's no TV, I won't be able to watch Gary." Trust Diana to worry more about Gary than freezing to death.

Lightning smiled. "That's right."

"That sounds bad." Diana huffed. "I don't like the wild."

"Yes, you do." Lightning ignored her daughter's glare. Diana wasn't anywhere near big enough to be threatening. "Remember when we went camping? You weren't complaining about no TV then."

"Because camping was awesome. We went fishing. We saw chocobos. And there was lots of other cool stuff to do. I even caught a sea monster."

The sea monster in question was a foot-long fish that Diana had caught. In the manner of most fishermen, Diana had spent the time since the camping trip steadily inflating the size of her catch until it was an aquatic behemoth ten times the size of a house that she'd only captured after an epic battle spanning fifteen hours. What scared Lightning was the fact that Diana and Vanille were completely consistent in describing the make-believe details of the catch. Was it a game of theirs or a shared hallucination? It was likely a bit of both.

Lightning yawned. It was getting late, even for her, and it was hard to stay awake with Diana next to her. Her daughter was too cuddly for her own good.

"Can you tell me a story, mom?" Diana swallowed a yawn of her own. She climbed on top of Lightning and settled her head on her chest. Diana's small frame moved in time to each of Lightning's breaths.

"A story?" Lightning patted Diana on the back. She was too tired to really think of a story, and she didn't want to get up to find a storybook. But there was a story she could tell although she'd have to change a few of the details.

"Please," Diana insisted. "It's the weekend tomorrow, so I don't have school, and… and look." She pointed at the plush toys. "I think Mr Snaggles and Mr Gorgy Sharp Tooth want another story too."

"I suppose I can tell you another story – and it would be a shame to say no to those two."

"Will it have magic in it? And how about chocobos? Oh, and could it have a dragon in it too?"

"It will definitely have magic in it, and there will be at least one chocobo. I'm not sure about a dragon though." Lightning smiled. "But I think you'll like it."

"I always like your stories." Diana looked up at Lightning and frowned. "Except for the one about the girl who liked doing her homework and never asked for candy. That story was lame."

Lightning winced. That particular story – a tale about a girl who was suspiciously similar to Diana but loved doing her homework and never asked for candy – had not been well received at all. Then Fang had found out about it and told a story of her own – one about a wife who was suspiciously similar to Lightning but never went to work and instead spent all day in bed with her spouse.

"This is a story about two sisters that loved each other very much."

"Cool." Diana sat up on Lightning's stomach and waved her arms around. "Is it about two awesome sisters except the younger one is a little bit more awesome and one days ends up being way taller and –"

"Diana," Lightning said. "Let me tell the story." She smiled. It was obvious how Diana wanted things to turn out. Sometimes, Lightning wondered if Diana would consider her entire life a success so long as she ended up taller than her sister. If that ever did happen, Diana would probably gloat for years about it. "But, yes, the two sisters are pretty awesome although the younger sister doesn't end up being taller."

"Yes, I do!" Diana covered her mouth with her hands. "Oops. I mean… yes, she does."

"Anyway," Lightning said. "The story takes place a long, long time ago in a faraway kingdom. The kingdom was very far to the north where it was very cold. Because of that, they called it Iceland. But even though it was cold, they still had spring and summer, only they were shorter and cooler than here."

"Iceland is a cool name." Diana snuggled back up to Lightning. "I bet they had heaps of ice."

"Oh, they did – during winter. Iceland was a peaceful and prosperous kingdom, and it's king and queen had two daughters. The older daughter was named Levina, and the younger daughter was named Soraya. Although they weren't the same age – Levina was three years older – they were the very best of friends."

"Like me and Averia!" Diana folded her arms over her chest. "Except for when she won't share her candy."

"It's her candy – she doesn't have to share all of it, and you don't always share your candy either."

"But she's already tall." Diana nodded sagely. "I need more candy so I can get bigger."

"Candy won't help you grow taller." Lightning smiled. "That's what milk is for. Anyway, Levina was special. She had magic powers. She could make things colder. She could even make snow and ice. Although some people might have been afraid of Levina's magic, Soraya loved it. She thought it was the best thing ever, and she loved it when Levina made lots of snow for them to play in."

"That sounds awesome." Diana's eyes were wide. "If I could do that, I'd never lose to Aunt Vanille in a snowball fight." She gestured wildly. "I'd be like, take this, Aunt Vanille! And pow! I'd get her with a million snowballs, and she'd have to surrender to my awesomeness."

Lightning raised one eyebrow. Diana plus Vanille meant trouble every time. "One day, Soraya woke her sister up extra early so they could fill one of their castle's rooms with snow. For a while they had a lot of fun. They made snowmen and snow castles and snow everything. With Levina's magic, they could do anything.

"But then something bad happened. Soraya got so excited playing with all the ice and snow that she forgot how dangerous it could be. She slipped, and Levina tried to use her magic to save her from falling. But even though she saved Soraya from falling, she hit her sister with some of her magic."

Diana wasn't smiling anymore. Instead, she was leaning forward, intent on every word. "Oh no! What happened?"

"Luckily, Soraya wasn't killed, but her parents didn't know how to undo Levina's magic, so they took her far away to a secret valley filled with trolls."

"Did they get eaten?" Diana was horrified. "Did they?"

"No. These were good trolls, the kind that help people. The trolls cured Soraya and took away her memories of what had happened. Then they warned the king and queen that Levina needed to learn how to control her powers. The king and queen promised to help Levina learn, but they were also scared. If Levina's magic could freeze the rooms in the castle, then maybe one day it would strong enough to freeze rivers and lakes. And if it could make snow, then maybe one day it could make blizzards. And if it could freeze one person… maybe one day it could freeze an entire army."

"That sounds horrible! But Levina wouldn't do those things, right? She was nice, wasn't she?"

"Yes, she was. In fact, Levina was just a scared little girl. But she was strong too. She promised to learn how to control her powers so that she would never hurt her sister again. But Levina was so worried about hurting her sister that she locked herself away and wouldn't play with her anymore."

"That's so sad." Diana sniffled. "This better not be a sad story, mom!" She paused. "But if Soraya didn't remember, then wouldn't she think her sister didn't like her?" Diana seemed to be having trouble wrapping her head around that concept, and Lightning's couldn't blame her. At no point had Diana ever thought that Averia didn't like her. Sure, they got annoyed with each other sometimes, but that didn't meant they didn't like each other.

"That's right. Soraya started worrying that her sister didn't like her anymore. But Soraya loved her sister so much that no matter how many times her sister sent her away, she kept coming back, hoping that would day her sister would be her friend again. Then, when the princesses were still very young, something even worse happened – their parents were on a ship when a big storm came and sank the ship."

"No!" Diana grabbed Lightning. "Mom, this is a super sad story. You have to make it happier or something." She clutched onto Lightning tightly.

Lightning patted Diana on the back. She could understand why Diana was upset. But she wasn't going anywhere and neither was Fang. And anyone who even thought of harming her family was in for one heck of a fight. "I promise it will have a happy ending, Diana. With both of their parents gone, Levina and Soraya were on their own. Levina knew that one day she would become queen, and she would have to protect not only her sister but also all of Iceland as well. So instead of just learning how to hide her magic, Levina started learning how to use it for other things. She learned how to use it to fight."

Diana's lip trembled. "That's so sad. She just wanted to make snowmen and do nice things."

"That's right. But even though she only wanted to do nice things, Levina wanted to protect her sister even more because she knew that bad people might come and hurt them or their kingdom. But because of how much training she had to do, she never had any time to speak or even see her sister.

"Finally, the day came when Levina was old enough to become queen. She opened the gates of her castle, which had been shut for years, and invited guests from all over her kingdom and from all the other kingdoms nearby. She wanted to show them that she was good enough to be queen.

"At first everything went well. There was good food and drink and even dancing. But, unfortunately, not all the guests were friendly. Some of them had come with an evil plan to take over Iceland."

"Oh no!" Diana reached for her plush toys. "What happened then?"

"The evil guests attacked Levina, and she was forced to use her powers. It was the first time since she lost her memories that Soraya had seen her sister's magic, and she screamed. When she heard her sister scream, Levina was sure that Soraya hated her, so she ran away. Levina was so upset that she lost control of her powers and froze everything around her. Levina's magic sent Iceland into the coldest winter that it had ever seen.

"But Soraya hadn't screamed because she was scared of her sister – she had screamed because she was so shocked at getting her memories back. She still loved her sister, so she ran after her."

"But how, mom? Wasn't everything frozen?"

"It was, but Soraya loved her sister so much that she had to try anyway. But it was hard, and she didn't' have magic like her sister, so she fell very far behind. She even got lost as she tried to follow her sister up a mountain. She might even have frozen to death, but she was lucky enough to meet a kind, old man and an ice harvester named Tuhin."

"An ice harvester?" Diana giggled. "But everything was frozen."

"That's right – there wouldn't be much work for Tuhin to do if everything remained frozen. Soraya told the kind, old man and Tuhin her story. The old man let her borrow a special mountain chocobo named Cheep who could run right through the thick snow."

"Cool. I wish I had a chocobo who could do that." Diana rubbed her cheek. "Maybe I could ask Chirpy to try. I bet he could run through snow if he wanted."

"Tuhin and Soraya rode Cheep up the mountain and ran into Mog, a magical snowman that Levina had created with her magic. Mog was worried about Levina, and he could see how much Soraya loved her, so he agreed to show them to the ice castle that Levina had created on top of the mountain.

"When they got there, Soraya begged her sister to come back with her. But Levina was still scared – she hadn't forgotten how she'd hurt Soraya when they were younger, and she never wanted to do that again. She also so how close Soraya and Tuhin had grown during their journey up the mountain, and she was afraid that they had fallen in love."

"Was she afraid that nobody would love her anymore?" Diana asked quietly.

"A little bit. So she tried to push Soraya away but ended up hitting her with her magic. When she saw that, Levina knew she had to get Soraya away from her before she accidentally hurt her even worse. To do that, Levina created a giant knight made of white ice, which drove them away."

"A knight made of white ice? That sounds kind of like Odin." Diana hugged Mr Snaggles. "But a dragon made of ice would have been cooler."

Lightning sighed. Honestly, did both Averia and Diana have to like Bahamut more than Odin? Couldn't one of her children have preferred her Eidolon to Fang's?

"I guess it does sound a little bit like Odin. Running away from the ice knight, Tuhin noticed that Soraya was slowly freezing. He took her to the trolls, and they told him that because Levina's magic had struck Soraya's heart, she was going to freeze unless an act of true love could save her."

"Why is it always true love?" Diana made a face. "I bet ninjas could have saved her. And she would have been fine if they had a dragon. A dragon could have warmed her up." Diana winced. "Or maybe not a dragon – a dragon probably would have burned her."

"Probably." Lightning patted Diana on the back. "Although Levina had sent her sister and Tuhin away, she felt bad about what she'd done, so she left her ice castle to go find them. But along the way, she was ambushed by Anders, the evil councilman that had once served her father. You see, he had promised to help the kings of some of Iceland's enemies capture her if they made him ruler of Iceland instead of her.

"Anders knew how much Levina loved her sister, so he said lots of mean things to her. He told her that she had killed her sister, that she was a monster, and that no one could ever love someone like her."

"He sounds mean." Diana growled. "I hope she punches him in the face!"

"Levina was so sad about what he said that her magic stopped working. Anders was getting ready to kill her when Soraya and Tuhin came. When Soraya saw what was happening, she threw herself between Anders and her sister. Instead, of hitting Levina with his sword, Anders hit Soraya, who turned into ice just as his sword hit."

"No!" Diana grabbed Lightning's arm. "That's not how it ends, is it? Soraya has to be okay!"

"The story isn't finished yet." Lightning soothed Diana. "Anders was thrown back when his sword struck Soraya. He hit his head on the ground and was knocked unconscious. Levina began to cry when she realised what had happened to her sister, but just as she was about to lose hope, Soraya came back to life."

"Yay!"

"You see, by sacrificing herself for her sister, Soraya had done something out of true love, which was enough to save her from her sister's magic. Levina was so happy to see her sister alive again, and she realised something very important. Love was the key to controlling her magic. The reason she'd had so much trouble controlling it was because she'd cut herself off from the person that loved her most.

"Levina finally stopped the horrible winter that had fallen over Iceland because of her magic. Anders was sent to prison for trying to overthrow her, and she got rid of all the people who had tried to help him, warning them that she would use her magic to fight them if they ever came back. From that day onward, she ruled Iceland wisely and well, and everyone lived happily ever after."

"Cool." Diana yawned. "But I still think that ninjas should have helped. Maybe ice ninjas." She lay down on top of Lightning and went back to using her chest for a pillow. "That was a good story, mom."

"I'm glad you liked it." Lightning sighed. "Remember, it's all about not giving up on people even if sometimes they do things that annoy you."

"Like when Averia doesn't share her candy with me."

Lightning chuckled. "Or when you don't pick up your toys and I trip on them, or you argue about eating your vegetables, or –"

"Mom!"

"But all of that doesn't mean I love you any less." Lightning wrapped her arms around Diana. "No matter what, you'll always be my daughter, and I'll always do my best to protect you, and I want you and Averia to always do you best to look after and protect each other."

"We will, mom." Diana tried to wrap her arms around Lightning. "Even if she is a grouch sometimes."

"Diana…"

"She is, mom." Diana giggled. "But I love her anyway. Good night, mom."

"Good night, Diana."

Diana closed her eyes as Lightning turned off the lamp on her bedside table. "You're warm, mom."

"So are you." Lightning found herself slipping off into sleep, the small, familiar weight of Diana held against her. The last thing she felt was some of Diana's hair poking her in the chin. No wonder Averia always complained about it.

X X X

"Mom! Mom! Wake up, it's snowing!"

Lightning covered her ears and curled up into a ball as Diana jumped up and down on the bed before somehow managing to drag her off the bed, across the floor, and over to the window. There was no way someone as small as Diana should be able to do that. Then again the thought of fun had given Diana superhuman strength in the past – like the time she'd dragged both Fang and Lightning to the park last autumn so that she could jump in all the leaves.

"Look, mom! Look!"

Rubbing at her eyes, Lightning pulled herself up off the floor and looked out the window. Her eyes widened. A thick carpet of snow had fallen overnight. Their front lawn had transformed into a winter wonderland.

"It's just like Iceland, mom!" Diana had already changed out of her pyjamas into her winter clothes. "Let's go out and play!"

Lightning threw on some warmer clothing and then followed Diana outside as the little girl almost tore the front door off its hinges in her haste to get outside. With a cry of delight, Diana threw herself headlong into the snow, flailing her arms and legs. Her happy shouts turned into a shriek as some of the snow slid down the back of her shirt.

"Cold!"

"Well, it is snow." Lightning helped Diana back onto her feet. Her daughter grinned. "What do you want to do?"

"Do you want to make a snowman?" Diana had the most hopeful look on her face.

"I wouldn't mind."

"Awesome."

Five minutes later, Lightning was forced to admit that her snowman-making skills were sorely lacking. Simply put, she was terrible. Diana, however, was incredibly good for a six-year-old. In fact most people would probably have gotten their snowmen mixed up, attributing the good one to Lightning and the weird-looking one to Diana.

"You're not very good at this, mom." Diana tilted her head to one side as she regarded Lightning's snowman with an expression somewhere between pity and dismay. Then she smiled. "But that's okay. I'll help you. We can work together to make a really big snowman. You can gather all the snow and then lift me up so I can do the rest."

It was kind of humiliating being outdone by a six-year-old, but at least that six-year-old was her daughter. And Diana did have a point. Due to her short stature, her snowman was more of a snow-dwarf. Together, they could make an appropriately large – and appropriately well-shaped – snowman.

When they were finally done, the two of them stood in front of a scarily accurate snow-Lightning and an almost equally scary snow-Diana. The only major flaw that Lightning could see was that the snow-Diana was a good six inches taller than the original.

"We're done." Diana nodded firmly. "And they're exactly the same as we are." Lightning's lips twitched. Diana was standing right next to the snow replica of herself. The girl's eyes widened, and she folded her arms over her chest. "I said, they're exactly the same as we are."

"Of course they are." Lightning grinned. Diana hadn't noticed it yet, but a familiar trio were ambling down the sidewalk toward them: Averia, Fang, and Vanille. "You might want to look over there, Diana."

"Why? What is it? Oh!"

Lightning chuckled as the front gate swung open. Fang was the first one through followed by Vanille – and Diana ran past both of them to tackle Averia to the ground. The older girl gave a squawk of outrage that was quickly muffled by several inches of snow.

"You're back!" Diana had ended up sitting on Averia's back.

"Yes, now get off me." Averia squirmed out from under Diana and scowled. Her face was covered in snow. "So… did you miss me?"

"No!" Diana scowled. Averia raised one eyebrow. Diana's scowl deepened. Averia tapped her foot. "Okay, fine… maybe a little bit." Diana grabbed Averia and dragged her over to the snow people she and Lightning had made. "Look what we made. And mom also told me this awesome story about two sisters and…"

Lightning was only half listening as Diana gave a heavily abridged – and heavily edited – account of her story that somehow twisted the moral of the tale into the importance of older sisters always sharing their candy with their younger sisters. Averia weathered the storm with her usual expression of faint amusement and exasperation.

"So, how did it go?" Lightning asked, pulling Fang in for a quick kiss as Vanille went over to talk to Diana.

"It went well. Averia's a natural although I guess that makes sense considering who her parents are." Fang smiled. "I have to admit, I was a little worried when the snow started to come down, but she did everything I taught her. We even managed to snag a few rabbits."

"Just don't tell Diana that." Lightning let Fang pull her into her arms. "She'll claim you're some kind of monster for hurting the cute, little bunny rabbits."

"Averia didn't mind." Fang leaned down and whispered into Lighting's ear. "She quite liked the taste of rabbit stew."

"You two are horrible." Lightning glanced up as Vanille knelt down to take a closer look at the snowmen that she and Diana had made. Diana grabbed a handful of snow and crept behind Vanille. As the redhead was about to stand, Diana shoved a handful of snow down her back.

Vanille shrieked and rounded on Diana. The chase was on. Unfortunately for Diana, she wasn't about to outrun Vanille through the snow. In almost no time at all, Vanille had Diana tucked underneath one arm as she applied a very thorough hair-ruffling to the mischievous youngster.

"Fang," Vanille said with utmost seriousness. "I demand vengeance. As your little sister, I am asking you to take revenge against Diana for me." Vanille tickled Diana. "I would prefer something horribly bloody, but I'll settle for something less fatal, like handing all of her candy to me."

"You can't do that!" Diana thrashed. "You can't!"

"Vanille, are you seriously asking my to take revenge against my own daughter?"

"Of course I am. And while she is your daughter, I've been your sister longer than she's been your daughter, so I totally have dibs on you for revenge purposes." 

"Is that how it works?"

"Yep."

"I see." Fang eased Diana out of Vanille's arms. Then she picked up two handfuls of snow and dumped one over Vanille and one over Diana. "There, that should make you two even now."

"You put snow on me, Fang."

"You put snow on me, mommy."

Vanille and Diana looked at each other. A spark of understanding flashed between the redhead and her loyal minion.

"Get her!" Vanille shouted.

Vanille went right for Fang's legs as Diana jumped at her middle. Fang flopped into the snow.

"Prepare to die, Fang!" Vanille was shovelling snow onto Fang as fast as she could.

"Eat snow, mommy!"

"Averia," Fang said. "Help your mommy."

Averia's response was to half-heartedly lob some snow in the general direction of Diana and Vanille.

"Traitor!" Fang reached out to Lightning with one hand. "Some help here?"

"I suppose." Lightning's lips twitched. "Or maybe not."

After several minutes of flailing around in the snow, Fang and Vanille retreated to the porch for some hot chocolate with Lightning. In a bid to reclaim a victory of sorts after being utterly mauled in the snow fight, Fang stole Vanille's marshmallows. She would have stolen Lightning's as well but one look at the pink-haired woman convinced her otherwise. Nobody touched Lightning Farrron's marshmallows and lived.

As they savoured the hot chocolate, Lightning reflected on the story she'd told Diana. There was a part of her that still wondered what she would have turned out like if she hadn't been forced to grow up so fast, if she hadn't joined the Guardian Corps and turned herself into a soldier. But it was only a small part. In the end, things had worked out. Serah hadn't given up on her, they'd beaten the bad guys, and they'd both ended up with their happily ever afters, Serah with Snow and Lightning with Fang.

She hoped that Averia and Diana would never have to go through what she and Serah had. But looking at them now, she had a feeling they never would. Averia wasn't nearly as closed off as Lightning had been after her parents died even if she could be grumpy. And Diana was too much a force of nature to ever let her sister push her away. And of course, Lightning and Fang would be there every step of the way to watch over them – and so would the others. After all, Vanille couldn't let anything happen to her favourite minion, now could she?

"What do you want to do now?" Averia asked. She and Diana had just finished poking all of the snow out of the lower branches of the big tree in the front yard.

"Do you want to build a snowman?"

"Sure."

X X X

**Author's Notes**

As always I neither own Final Fantasy, nor am I making any money off of this.

This chapter has been a long time coming – although that's the nature of the beast with this story, which is very much episodic in nature (even more so than _Ordinary Heroes_). In any case, it is nice to add another chapter and to go back to the girls' childhood after spending quite a few chapters elsewhere in the future.

This chapter is a companion, of sorts, to Chapter 3 of _Ordinary Heroes_. But rather than having Lightning and Averia, it features Lightning and Diana. Perhaps it's a little strange, but I've found that the chapters focusing on Lightning with the children are amongst the "softest". I guess it's because that's the side of Lightning that the kids bring out. Serah might have seen it before too, but Serah and Lightning's relationship was always kind of a mess since Lightning had to act as her sister and her mother (and the two roles don't really fit well together at all for the Farron siblings).

Lightning's story is heavily based on Disney's _Frozen_ (which I don't own either). Seriously, _Frozen_ could almost be one big metaphor for how Lightning and Serah's relationship fell apart (the ice magic could be viewed as symbolism for Lightning's transformation into a soldier). That said, I did change the story up a bit to make things a little more Lightning-specific.

As you know, I have a thing for choosing names. The names in this chapter are no different. Levina is a name of Latin origin meaning "lightning bolt" which is a reference to Lightning (since she plays the Lightning-like character in the story). Soraya is a Persian name meaning "princess" (and Serah's name means princess). Tuhin is an Arabic name meaning "Snow" since Tuhin plays the part of Snow, essentially, in the story (note how poorly Levina takes it when she thinks that Soraya and Tuhin are in love). Anders is a reference to Barthandelus who poses as a wise and noble Primarch – Barthandelus's name comes from Baldanders, a mythological figure.

And yes, Sazh was the old man and Cheep is basically Chirpy (the snow version).

Finally, I'd like to mention that I'm running another promotion for my original fiction on Amazon. Not sure if you'll like my original fiction? Then now is the perfect time to try.

This Saturday 18th January, _The Last Huntress_ will be available on Amazon for free. And who knows, you might like some of my other original fiction too! The promotion starts at 12:00 AM Saturday 18th January and ends at 11:59 PM that same day (Pacific Standard Time) although there might be a few hours give or take each way due to Amazon's scheduling system. And if you don't have a Kindle, don't worry – you can download a free Kindle app from Amazon that let's you use anything (PC, laptop, mac, ipad, iphone, phone, etc) instead. I already have a link to both of those (_The Last Huntress _and the app) in my profile, but I'll be updating my profile with more visible links once the promotion starts.

As always, I appreciate feedback. Reviews and comments are welcome.


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